Workshops Support Moroccan Olive Oil Sector

A series of work­shops in Morocco aim­ing to strengthen the coun­try’s olive oil sec­tor were orga­nized jointly by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2017.

On February 7, 2017, a work­shop was held in coop­er­a­tion with Interprolive, Morocco’s olive oil indus­try asso­ci­a­tion, in Meknes, which is in the heart of one of the coun­try’s olive grow­ing regions.

Public and pri­vate stake­hold­ers were invited to come together to dis­cuss how to improve inter­pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion and ensure a high qual­ity of olive pro­duc­tion in the region. At the same work­shop, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of olive oil pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tions from Italy and Portugal were invited to share their expe­ri­ences and insights with their coun­ter­parts work­ing in the olive indus­try in Morocco.

In a press release by the FAO, Interprolive’s direc­tor, Ahmed Khannoufi shared details about the asso­ci­a­tion’s recent activ­i­ties: ​“Right now we are focused on orga­niz­ing our­selves bet­ter in terms of national rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the indus­try, and have signed a ​‘con­tract pro­gramme’ with the gov­ern­ment that has allowed us to start pro­vid­ing ser­vices to our mem­bers, such as tech­ni­cal assis­tance and com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies to increase con­sumer aware­ness.”

Specifically, the asso­ci­a­tion has launched an adver­tis­ing cam­paign encour­ag­ing Moroccan con­sumers to buy bet­ter qual­ity olive oil pack­aged in bot­tles instead of in bulk and has been focus­ing on pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal train­ing to its mem­ber aim­ing to improve pro­duc­tion.

Mohamed Sadiki, the sec­re­tary gen­eral of Morocco’s Ministry of Agriculture and Maritime Fisheries reit­er­ated the impor­tance of improv­ing the qual­ity of the coun­try’s olive pro­duc­tion: ​“By rein­forc­ing olive oil sec­tor insti­tu­tions and focus­ing on the qual­ity of pro­duc­tion, Morocco will be able to strengthen the olive oil value chain at the national level, facil­i­tate job cre­ation and increase exports,” he was quoted as say­ing in the FAO press release.

As part of the FAO’s and EBRD’s ongo­ing sup­port to Morocco’s olive oil sec­tor, 12 train­ing work­shops in olive tree prun­ing were also orga­nized from 12 to 18 March. Participants included stu­dents of agri­cul­tural sci­ence, mem­bers of eco­nomic inter­est groups work­ing in the olive sec­tor, as well as olive grow­ers and pro­duc­ers from the provinces of Sefrou, Taza and Taounate.

“The olive oil sec­tor in Morocco has played a role of pri­mary impor­tance in the government’s (Green Morocco Plan),” said Michael Hage, the FAO rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Morocco. ​“In this con­text, pri­or­i­ties for devel­op­ment of the sec­tor have a spe­cific focus on aggre­ga­tion, improve­ment of qual­ity and effi­ciency all along the value chain, devel­op­ment of the local olive oil mar­ket and sup­port to exports of Made in Morocco prod­ucts.”

Increasing olive pro­duc­tion is one of the focal points of the gov­ern­men­t’s Green Morocco Plan, launched in 2008. Under the 15-year pro­gram, there have been sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments in the olive sec­tor with the aim to increase olive pro­duc­tion to 2.5 mil­lion tons by 2020.

• FAO


• African Manager