Speaker
Description
The implementation of innovative technologies in the agricultural sector requires a deep understanding of its specific requirements as well as of possible hindering – or fostering – natural, institutional, economic and social factors.
Since long time, Moroccan policymakers have given a strong priority to the dissemination of localized irrigation techniques and, therefore, taxes on the import of equipment for drip irrigation have been reduced or canceled. Drip irrigation has been promoted by the Moroccan state as a technical solution for saving the scare resource and large subsidies to support the adoption of this technique have been offered.
In arid and semi-arid regions like Goulmima and Idelsan in the Tafilalet region, Morocco, farmers are practicing subsistence agriculture since many decades, where the available quantity and quality of irrigation water is of major importance for the success or failure of irrigation projects.
Our study focuses on specific aspects which could be considered as challenges for the adoption of innovative technologies like the Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) and the brackish water Desalination through Membrane Capacitive Deionization (MCDI) in the targeted regions.
This research is part of a larger BMFB-financed Client II project on "Novel Solutions to Strengthen Agriculture under Arid and Semiarid Conditions as an Important Contribution to Sustainable Land Management in Morocco” (SuLaMo).
The empirical research revealed a number of influencing factors that could inhibit the adoption of the addressed technologies at local level and beyond. Many agricultural policies and state instruments like the national plan for saving water for irrigation (PNEEI), the national plan Green Morocco (PMV), the green generation program or aquifer contracts are intended to support farmers for better planning and executing irrigation projects and regulate shared water use purposes. However, the diversity and complexity of working rules and coordination mechanisms within these policies make the implementation of the addressed technologies difficult. The access of farmers to SDI and MCDI faces many hindrances such as the complexity of state subsidies and credit systems, the lack of specific technological knowledge, the multiplicity of land and water use rights (private, collective and customary use rights), and the perceptions (risks, uncertainty about outputs and achievements, path-dependency) and cognitive schemata (informal rules) of the practicing farmers about how to manage sustainably the use of these technologies.
