Larbi Toumi - Agro-socio-economist and General Affairs Manager, the Secretariat General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development, Waters and Forests, Rabat (Morocco).
Food security is on the political agenda of both developing and developed countries and materialized in the action of public authorities who see food governance as a lever to meet the multiple challenges of sustainability. Among the crops that respond to these challenges, pulses are taking an increasingly important role in the agricultural policies of many countries. This choice stems from environmental and economic challenges that push public policies to move towards more sustainable food systems, where pulses that are particularly rich in protein represent an alternative to the animal proteins consumption and have economic, agro-environmental, nutrition and health advantages. Given this crucial role in a healthy and balanced diet, in sustainable food production and above all in food security, the international community has promoted pulses production by declaring 2016 the International Year of Pulses, at the 68th General Assembly of the United Nations.
During the two decades of the 1960s and 1970s, Morocco was one of the world’s leading exporters of pulses. However, the policy of wheat support, reflected in the launching of an intensification program in 1985 aimed at sowing one million hectares of wheat through the dissemination of new varieties, the setting of a guaranteed prices and marketing margins, had negative impacts on the extension and technical progress of pulses sector. This has resulted in a low coverage of pulses consumption needs. Indeed, the average rate of consumption coverage has been only 41% over the last two decades (1997-2017). According to the trend scenario 2021-2025 established by the High Commission for Plan (HCP), this situation will persist as annual growth in pulses production will be slightly positive, barely exceeding 2%, which is largely insufficient to cover the local demand for pulses.
In addition, the India-Morocco Initiative for the Development of Food Legumes (IMFLI) for the period from September 2014 to September 2018 has diagnosed the pulses sector and analyzed the downstream part of its value chain. This diagnosis showed a multiple actors intervening in the value chain with fragmentation of local supply, dissipation of information, weak organization, lack of governance and structuring of the links between upstream and downstream actors of the sector (Fig.1).
By focusing on the organization and governance of the pulses sector in Morocco and based on the results of the Morocco-Indian initiative, we conducted research aimed to address the following question: How to structure the pulses sector and improve its governance for food security purposes by examining the issues and main constraints affecting all the links in the value chain of the sector and its future in the next decade.
Using the Delphi Method through the consultation of experts and specialists from the various links in the pulses value chain, results showed an orientation more towards consensus than disagreement. The prior proposals responding to the main issues and constraints that face the structuring of the value chain of pulses and improving its governance are summarized as below:
| Main Issues | Main constraints | Prior Proposals with high consensus +80% |
| Helping small producers to better position themselves in the supply chain
|
Fragmentation of local supply upstream of the sector ; | -Awareness of the creation of producer associations around a national federation in order to overcome the fragmentation of local supply;
-Strengthening the capacities of producers and professional organizations in management and negotiation to assert their rights; |
| Strengthen visibility between value chain actors | Dissipation of information | -Development of partnerships between upstream and downstream actors in the sector for the well-being of the consumer (quality and accessibility);
-Strengthening the circulation and sharing of information between actors in the value chain (product origin); |
| Ensuring good governance for food security purposes | Weak organization and lack of governance | -Creation of an inter-professional federation dedicated to pulses like other agricultural production chains and mobilization of all the actors of the sector around this federation;
-Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of actions in favor of the sector (seed production, varietal research, health control, agricultural advisory services, Pillar II and aggregation projects of Green Morocco Plan, supply and demand regulation); -Reinforcement of coordination and synergies between the value chain actors concerned by pulses for better optimization of actions and reduction of production factor costs; - Development of trust and transparency vis-à-vis the various partners and users involved in the sector; |
However, the analysis of experts’ comments on the future of the sector by the 2030 horizon revealed controversial opinions and did not make it possible to establish scenarios for changes in terms of the share of pulses in crop rotation, the potential for increasing areas, national production and marketing.
Such results highlight two main sets of conclusions:
- The organization of the pulses sector via creation of an inter-professional federation dedicated to pulses where a balanced dialogue between upstream and downstream actors of pulses is practiced and good governance practices are shared and respected by all actors;
- The need for collective thinking among actors in the pulses sector in order to respond to the main issues of different links of the value chain of the sector through the laying foundations for a common strategic vision of the sector and its implementation based on good governance. This will require coordination, information sharing, transparency and partnership among upstream and downstream actors of the sector.
Indeed, the identified proposals contributing to the structuring of the Moroccan’s pulses sector and its good governance are ready for urgent review and adoption in order to ensure that pulses can play their potential role in the country's food security. They are therefore a commendable orientation for public policy decision-makers to re-launch this sector as a strategic sector.
A more detailed on the results of our paper is published by Hill Publisher Group (Read paper). This research was realized with the valuable contribution of Mohamed El Amrani Professor at Ecole Nationale d’Agriculture de Meknès, Abdelakader Ait El Mekki Professor at Ecole Nationale d’Agriculture de Meknès, Rachid Harbouze Professor at Institut Agronomique et Vétériniare Hassan II, Rabat and Aziz Fadlaoui Researcher at Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Meknès.
