In Souss, the reconversion of farmers to red fruits, the final solution to their loss of competitiveness

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All along the road between Biougra et Belfaâthere are kilometers of greenhouses almost glued to each other. The plastic of some has yellowed in the sun, while others are brand new with gleaming metal structures. We are at the heart of the national tomato export factory and more and more red and blue fruits.

Looking inside these imposing Canarian tunnels or greenhouses, spread over several tens of thousands of square meters, it is no longer so much the tomato plants clinging to a clever tangle of wires stretched under the weight of the round fruits that we let’s see, but shrubs planted not in the ground but in black plastic pots of 25 to 40 liters.

The ultimate blueberry to counter the decline of the tomato?

A crop much more sophisticated than the tomato, requiring in addition refrigeration stations in situ, a high rate of acidity and soil drainage as well as significant contributions of organic matter condemning farmers not only to regularly provide fertility to their plants, but it also requires changing devices regularly after a few years of full production.

On the road, we sometimes come across hundreds of corpses of dried-out shrubs, just like their soil, abandoned against the greenhouses. A substrate composed of a mixture of peat, coconut fibers and perlite. This is what remains from previous harvests. With 4,000 blueberry plants on average per hectare, the image of this ‘waste’ can be striking, especially if we know that to maintain them in optimal conditions, these plants, now dead, had to be kept in humidity throughout their short life.

Recently introduced into the Soussunlike the Gharb and at Offensepioneers of this crop in Morocco, red fruits and especially blueberries consume relatively less water than tomato plants, but fear water stress and water salinity. They must in fact be more regularly irrigated but with an average consumption of 10.000 tonnes of water per year and per hectare compared to more than triple for tomatoes.

Faced with the problem of drying up its aquifer, it is therefore no coincidence that the Souss region is beginning to massively convert to this new red and blue gold whose prices per tonne are 5 to 10 times higher than those of the ton of tomatoes.

This trend, which began in Souss at the end of the 2010s, tends to continue, or even accelerate. Moreover, during the 2023-2024 season, most of the production and export of national blueberries takes place in the region, thus supplanting the historical production regions.

“With the problems encountered by tomatoes in Morocco, more and more farmers have turned to red fruits, particularly blueberries,” says a national exporter met at a packing station in Aït Melloul. And to add “With the costs of social security, the VAT which was introduced on all inputs, their inflation, in addition to the cost of energy and water, we are no longer competitive on tomatoes . “It’s better to switch to raspberries or blueberries.”

More public support

For him, whether for water stress or for the profitability of tomatoes, the problems encountered in Europe, or the increasingly frequent viruses and parasites on tomatoes are pushing farmers to convert. “The subsidies that were granted to revive tomato production were not enough to stem the trend.” And added: “Today, whether it is tomatoes or red fruits, it is the big international companies that are winning. They sell us seeds, plants and inputs, most often without support from the State, which makes us more exposed to epidemics and losses while foreign suppliers win every time.

According to him, even with the subsidy granted by the State for the cultivation of tomatoes from 70.000 dirhams/ha in greenhouses and 10,000 DH/ha for tomatoes in open fields, or almost 10% of the annual cost of the season, this is not going to change the situation. “What we need is more technical support and better control of seeds and plants from l’ONSSAand more broadly, better support and better listening to the needs of farmers by the authorities.

For this farmer who opted for agricultural investment in Mauritaniathe know-how developed by the farmers of Souss only requires support from the State for the benefit of the region and Morocco. “In Mauritania, Moroccan farmers produce carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, watermelons, etc. They receive a lot of facilities from the local government. If there were no customs duties imposed by Morocco, its markets could even accommodate part of the production of Mauritanian vegetables, like the watermelon episode of January last year.

A South-South migration which today seems a completely trivialized social fact in the Souss which also welcomes an increasingly large portion of sub-Saharan workers attracted by the significant demand for agricultural labor, following the reconversion to crops that require more work, and preferably, inexpensively.

Between reconversion of crops, the uprooting of orange groves or even the migration of certain agricultural investors from Souss to Mauritania, it is indeed the entire agriculture of this region which is changing.

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