Dry weather and then flooding will slash Morocco's cereals crop to 6-7 million tonnes this year from last season's record 10.2 million tonnes, its main grains group chief told Reuters. As a result, Morocco would need to import 4-4.5 million tonnes of soft and hard wheat as well as barley to make up for the short-fall of its domestic crop.
It will come in the range of 60 million quintals (6 million tonnes) and 70 million quintals," said Ahmed Ouayach, chairman of Morocco's Federation of Interprofessional Cereal Activities, known by its French acronym FIAC. Ouayach, who also chairs Morocco's farming and agribusiness Comader body which groups representatives of various farming unions, had forecast early last year the record harvest of more than 10 million tonnes. The government confirmed his forecast three months later.
His FIAC federation groups cereal farmers as well as millers and grains importers. Ouayach blamed the dry weather in the sowing period between September and November and the heavy rains in February and March that caused floods that damaged crops in some areas mainly in northern Gharb region.
As a result of the dry weather, the total areas planted in cereals shrank 8 percent to 4.7 million hectares this year, of which 1.9 million sowed in soft wheat - 5 percent less than in the previous season - and 900,000 hectares in durum wheat or 5 percent down than last year and 1.9 million in barley - 13 percent less. Flooding in the past two months damaged 168,000 hectares in the Gharb area, of which 88,700 hectares was cereal, according to the Agriculture Ministry.