Plant Trees to Empower Farming Families in Morocco

This report summarises six months of field-work regarding monitoring trees in the Draa Tafilalte region, Azilal and Tata provinces. The process of monitoring fruit trees at the High Atlas Foundation ran from the beginning of April to the end of December 2021, a suitable  time for the new season of tree distribution to farmers for 2022.

I. Planting sites/regions and provinces

 1)-The map shows the area where I work

-          Total number of trees monitored: 200,000

-          Old contract: 65

-          Total number of points recorded: 617

Positive points

• The trees are growing in good condition in the majority of provinces.
• Trees have a higher success rate in 2021 compared to last year.
• Farmers were very interested in planting more trees and working with us as a monitoring team, especially after they expressed their  satisfaction with the quality of the trees they received from HAF this year, for example, in Errachidia province, where 90% of the trees are growing well.

Some obstacles

• Traveling to far planting sites takes a significant amount of time.
• High temperatures affect our work, especially during the summer period.
• The rugged terrain and sometimes-missing roads as well as distance between farms force us to walk long distances to access planting sites, which extends the time expended for monitoring trees.
• Some trees were exposed to diseases that made them not grow in good conditions, especially pesero disease that affected the almond trees in Ait Attab in the Azilal province.
• The lack of water and the absence of wells forced farmers to travel distances in order to bring water to irrigate the trees (Zagora, Azilal…)
• Farmers who buy small quantities of trees raise monitoring costs considerably (effort, time, expense)

II. Monitoring / provinces and percentage of monitoring

1)-The map shows the provinces where I work and the percentage of monitoring in each province

2)- The graphic below shows the percentage of living trees in each province for 2021

The monitoring of trees this year was accomplished under difficult conditions that required a lot of effort, but despite all the obstacles we faced, we managed to overcome them and monitor many trees in a short time.