Growing Diversity – North Africa
TITLE OF EXPERIENCE: In-site conservation of local cereal varieties in a sustainable development project in Moyen-Atlas.
AUTHOR: Organisation for Local Development (Association de Développement Local (ADL))
COUNTRY AND REGION: MOROCCO, Tanant in the Middle Atlas, 150 km from Marrakech
ECOLOGICAL ZONE: The Middle Atlas is made up of large clacareous arid plateaux ; its slopes are covered with forests and pastures.
ABSTRACT
This is the experience of a group of people (a Moyen Atlas local berber community, the organisation for sustainable development (l’Association de Développement Durable) and a team of researchers from Moroccan agricultural institutes) who have come together to conserve local varieties of cereals.
The Tanant berber population’s main activity is the cultivation of barley with a little wheat. Almond and olive trees are cultivated higher up. Familes also keep sheep. Life is hard. People live in a very restricted area, roads are rare and the most common means of transportation is the donkey or the mule. Wood is the main fuel and electricity and drinking water are extremely rare. Few children go to school.
Apart from these local development problems, the preservation of the environment is also a problem in this part of the Middle Atlas. Overgrazing and the use of wood for fuel cause the deterioration of the forests in addition to periods of drought and sol erosion. Agricultural biodiversity is also decreasing. Some crops are gradually abandoned. For example, the local lentil cannot be found in the market, cultivated lentils are Canadians. Wheat seedlings commercially distributed by the agricultural department are sometimes cultivated at the expanse of local wheat. This loss of a local variety is caused by drought and the need in some years for the farmers to buy seedlings. Another cause is the popularisation of agriculture without the encouragement to cultivate and conserve local varieties. Introduced varieties are increasingly visible.
Because of these problems, the ADL has, since 1993, developed adult literacy programmes and training programmes for teachers and teachers of agriculture. It has also a programme for raising the question of the creation of a cooperative with local people. A direct action about the conservation of biodiversity has taken place in the last two years. It consists in setting experiments with the participation of various people: the Tenant farmers, a team of researchers from Rabat who are interested by the conservation in-situ of local cereal varieties and the ADL team. This experiment allows the farmers to observe the differences between the cultivation of local varieties and the improved varieties on their own land.
CONTACT:
ADL, Abdellah Herzenni (Président), tel : 212 37 79 98 01 ; fax : 212 37 77 51 95. BP 6447 Rabat Instituts, Maroc ; adl_rabat@yahoo.fr