Field study Morocco 2005

Partners: National Research Institute of Morocco (Institut National de Recherche Agronomique) - Provincial Department of Agriculture of Chefchaouen - Regional Agricultural Research Center of Tangier - Chamber of Agriculture of Chefchaouen - Regional Council of Tangier-Tetouan

Topic: Productivity and profit improvement of goat breeding in the Chefchaouen Province

Location: Chefchaouen Province

ICRA Working Document Series number: 127

Context: The Chefchaouen Province, located in the Center of the Northern Provinces, is a good example of what is at stake for the development of these provinces. It has major assets to mobilize the productive potential of agriculture, specifically the best conditions for intensive cropping, large amounts of water, a rich and diversified quantity of forest animal husbandry representing a major resource to promote forest and animal breeding sectors.

Objectives: General objective: Contribute to the income generation improvement of rural populations in the West Rif Region of Morocco through identification and dissemination of sustainable ways to develop goat breeding.

Specific objective: Contribute to the CRRA of Tangier action plan for the design of a concerted and specific R&D programme regarding two types of goat breeding with details about practical conditions on how to implement this programme.

Outputs: An analysis of the cause to effect relations between the various aspects which influence the goat breeding showed a fall of the production, a low profitability of this breeding and overlapping of the implementation actions.

Team members:

Name	Institute	Discipline
Nisrin ALAMI	Conseil Régional de Tanger Tétouan	Food production
Mohammed BEN BATI	INRA Tanger	Animal science
Rachid BOUKHARTA	Dir. Prov. Agriculture Chefchaouen	Rural economy
Jamila JOUT	Dir. Prov. Agriculture Chefchaouen	Animal production
Aziz ZAHROU	Chambre d'Agriculture de Chefchaouen	Agronomy

Reviewer: Dr Toon Defoer (Belgium), ICRA professional Associate.

Abstract: Goat keeping plays an important socio-economic role for the rural populations of Morocco, particularly in the Northern region. Despite the various attempts to improve the goat production system, their impact on the farms remains limited.

This study ought to contribute to the development of a common goat sub-sector strategy through the involved main stakeholders namely agricultural research, governmental and non-governmental support services as well as producer organizations.

The study includes a diagnosis of some issues of goat keeping in the Chefchaouen Province and provides insights related to: the major changes of the goat production system in the last decade, the strengths and weaknesses of this system, the opportunities and threats of the local development, the management of producer organizations, the organization of the milk and meat sub-sectors and the approaches of their operations. Based on the present trends and hypotheses, four scenarios have been designed to anticipate these possible changes of the goat sub-sector. The team has developed three operational key sectors:

• the productivity and profit improvement of goat keeping at farm level,
• improving the effectiveness of the meat and milk sub-sectors
• improving the effectiveness of the support services in goat breeding field

Key words: Morocco, Chefchaouen, goat breeding, meat and milk sub-sectors, future scenarios, intervention domains

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