Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
December 15 , 2007

Morocco takes new steps to protect the agricultural sector.

Agriculture in Morocco depends on the amount of annual rainfall. Now, after a particularly dry season where the cereal harvest was 66% lower than the five-year average, the government is implementing new measures for 2007-2008. Agriculture Minister Aziz Akhenouch said a programme financed entirely by the agricultural development fund and the general budget will help combat the effects of drought. The cost: 400 million dirhams to purchase 400,000 tonnes of barley, corn, mixed feed and drinking water for some rural areas. According to the agriculture ministry’s communications department, farmers will benefit from state support for cereal seeds to the value of 115 DH/ 100 kg. Crop diversification is also included in the agriculture programme. Four million olive trees and an additional half-million various fruit trees will be distributed.

Through subsidies of up to 60%, the agriculture ministry is continuing to grant aid for equipment to be used in water-saving irrigation systems. Efforts to support mechanisation in this sector will also continue. The support has enabled a 42% rise in tractor sales this year and a 21% increase in autumn sowing and cultivation. Farmers will also benefit from reduced interest rates not exceeding 5.5% for investment credit and 5% for seasonal credit. In another helpful move, the processing of farm debts will be taken over by Crédit Agricole, a company specialising in the financing of small-scale agriculture projects which are ineligible for traditional bank finance.

Despite the government initiative, some farmers are still unhappy. Abdelkébir Mouassaoui, a young farmer, said the State’s efforts must be stepped up to save the growing season. The recent rain has certainly done some good, he added, but it is still not enough. Mouassaoui argued that much more attention needs to be paid to irrigation from now on, since Morocco has a significant number of dams. His colleague, El Mouden Barakat, said that recent years have proved very trying for the sector. "Morocco has imported 2,280 tonnes of cereals through October 15th. This is an alarming rise of 115.4% compared with 2006. So the national farming industry is finding it very difficult to reach its target regarding food security," he explained.

To improve understanding of the agriculture sector, the government wants to conduct studies. According to the agriculture ministry, they have achieved a "first" this year: the Hassan II fund just granted 25 million dirhams for a strategic study of agriculture. "This is a clear signal, because never before has such an amount been released to fund a study in the sector," declared the agriculture minister. The comprehensive analysis will help the country react if this season is marked by a continuation of the drought.
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=12856
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Development threatens Morocco's wild shoreline.
Wed Dec 12, 2007   By Tom Pfeiffer SAIDIA, Morocco (Reuters)

Ecologists say a tragedy is unfolding in north Africa where construction firms are moving in on some of the last unspoilt stretches of Mediterranean coastline in the search for profits. With Spain trying to preserve what remains undeveloped on its built-up shoreline, Morocco has stepped forward as a willing host for large-scale tourism development as it seeks to narrow the north-south wealth divide and lift millions out of poverty. The cost, say environment campaigners, will be irreparable damage to the Mediterranean's wilder southern shores where urban and industrial expansion, rampant pollution and illegal sand extraction are already taking their toll.

Morocco wants to attract millions of extra tourists to a chain of seaside resorts being built by Spanish, Belgian and Dutch consortia and U.S. groups Kerzner and Colony Capital. The first is under way in Saidia on Morocco's eastern edge, where Spain's Fadesa is turning a low-lying area of forests and dunes into 7 million square meters of shops, golf courses, hotels with 17,000 beds and 3,100 villas and flats. On its British Web site, Fadesa promises "landscaped parks and green areas, as well as pleasant public spaces, (will) harmonize with the beautiful natural surroundings." At the development last month, machines lumbered over a landscape of earthworks, workers' shacks and the tattered remains of what campaigners say was Morocco's only juniper forest. "We call them the destroyers," said local environment campaigner Najib Bachiri. "They dug up 6 km of dunes and killed thousands of tortoises just so you can see the sea from the corniche." In a statement, Fadesa said it had "put in place measures for the protection, recuperation and regeneration of the environment beyond what was demanded by Moroccan law."

BEACHES RETREATING
Seven out of 47 of Morocco's Mediterranean beaches have disappeared in recent years, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said in a report last year. In Algeria, of between 250 and 300 km (160 and 190 miles) of sandy beaches, 85 percent were retreating and losing sand. In valleys throughout the Maghreb, new dams for irrigation are trapping sediment that once washed down to coastal areas to bolster important wildlife habitats. Wildlife groups said Fadesa was given carte blanche to destroy the dunes that protected Saidia's hinterland from the sea and flatten all but a small patch of forest. "They could at least have left some of the trees for the golf courses, but even they were uprooted," said Mohamed Benata, head of regional development association ESCO. Fadesa has said the Saidia project will create 8,000 direct jobs and more than 40,000 indirectly in a poor region cut off since 1994 when Algeria closed its land border with Morocco.

Tourism Ministry officials said they wanted each new resort to make use of the local environment to attract higher-spending visitors, adding that they had enforced the most widely used international standards for preserving the natural habitat. Some observers say Morocco made a mistake in allowing Fadesa to build close to the Moulouya wetland, the country's most important reserve for more than 200 species of birds, and fear the worst, given plans for up to a million visitors every year. "It's too close to the mouth of the river which has the richest ecosystem," said Alaoui El Kebir of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) in Rabat. Saidia's unique habitat drew life from water seeping through the sand and collecting in marshy areas. Fadesa has built channels and barriers to drain water away from the buildings. "Fadesa say the work will dry about 5 percent of the wetland but our calculations show it'll be more like half," said Benata.

MIGRATING BIRDS
Without the wetland, a vital stepping stone for hundreds of millions of migrating birds would be removed. The EEA says several north African wetlands are threatened, including Lake Bizerta in Tunisia, the salt lake of Regahaia in Algeria and 23rd of July Lake in Libya. Bachiri accuses Fadesa of flouting local laws by pumping water from the Moulouya river. Lorries could be seen last month on the river bank loading up with salty water then returning to the work site. A spokesman for Fadesa said the company had presented an environmental impact study when tendering for the project, which the Moroccan government had accepted, and had implemented steps to protect and improve the environment beyond that required by Moroccan law.

ESCO's Benata said mega-projects such as Saidia were out of fashion in Europe -- Spain had begun copying a strategy pioneered on the French Riviera to reclaim land, demolish buildings and regenerate the ecosystem. Once the Saidia development is complete, Fadesa is likely to sell the site to management companies. Years down the line, however, nature may regain control. "We produced a flooding scenario which shows most of the Fadesa complex could be under water by 2050 as global warming raises sea levels," said Maria Snoussi, earth sciences professor at Mohamed V University in Rabat.
(Additional reporting by Sarah Morris in Madrid; editing by Sara Ledwith and Andrew Dobbie)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL2072016820071212?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
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More Moroccan women headed for Spanish farms in 2008.
13/12/2007 By Sarah Touahri

Spain announces plan to boost farm worker permit program for Moroccan women. The agricultural workers say the seasonal employment pay makes it worthwhile to leave their families behind in Morocco for three months. Spain will increase the number of Moroccan seasonal workers within its borders. In 2008, some 11,127 Moroccan women will head for work on Spanish farms, compared with 1,700 in 2005 and 4,600 in 2007. Selection of applicants will continue until December 12th in Fez, Mohammedia, Agadir and Dakhla. The women will mainly be picking strawberries.

Aged between 18 and 40, the candidates must have experience in the agricultural sector, be in good shape physically and have dependent children. A medical examination is compulsory. If accepted, applicants will leave for Spain with contracts of up to three months, and must promise to return to Morocco at the end of the contract period. They may re-apply each time the programme is organised.

Morocco's National Agency for the Promotion of Employment and Skills (ANAPEC) is processing the applications and will conduct the selection process. Mohamed Chbaâtou, regional director for ANAPEC in Fez, said the agency is currently running a campaign to inform the women of their rights and responsibilities, and to help them through the administrative process and pre-selection.

Halima Boussaid is one of this year's applicants. She already worked in Spain last year, and hopes to return there to help support her family. "I have a two-year-old daughter, and I’ve always worked in the fields. In Spain, you can earn more money than in Morocco, which enables me to help my husband, who also works on a farm," she said.

Benefiting from free accommodation and transport, the farm workers will earn 33 euros for a daily six-and-a-half-hour shift, plus 6 euros for each additional hour. One applicant, El Batoul Hamzaoui, said the salary for three months in Spain is the equivalent of a whole year’s wages in Morocco. "I hope I’ll be successful. I’m accustomed to work, and it would be better to leave the family for three months to gain more money than to work hard all year long near my children," she declared.

Alfredo Ramos Moreno, secretary-general for work and social affairs at the Spanish embassy, said that in the future, satisfied employers will be able to contact the workers directly without having to go through ANAPEC. The Spanish government is encouraged by the rate of return obtained thus far. More than 90% of seasonal workers returned to Morocco at the end of the contract in 2007, compared with just 50% in 2006. Selection criteria have grown increasingly strict; last year the condition of having dependent children was added as an additional measure to ensure the workers' return. The operation is one element of a partnership linking Morocco with Andalusian authorities to recruit seasonal workers from Morocco.

This "ethical seasonal immigration management" programme, agreed for 2004-2008, forms part of a European programme, AENEAS, to provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries covering immigration and asylum. The European Union is providing 80% of the financing for the project, which aims to reduce illegal immigration by tightening control over population movement. http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2007/12/13/feature-01
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Loving Hip-Hop in Morocco
Rikki Reyna NYU Livewire December 12, 2007

Wandering through the souks of the Marrakech medina, Josh Asen was surprised to hear the hip-hop sounds of Puff Daddy and Eminem over the strains of traditional religious music. In Morocco on a 2004 Fulbright fellowship to research hip-hop, Asen, then 24, impulsively abandoned the idea of writing a paper —too dry —and decided to make a film instead. And that's how a self-described Brooklyn Jew who grew up listening to Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald came to help found Morocco's first-ever hip-hop festival and, with friend Jennifer Needleman, to make the documentary "I Love Hip Hop in Morocco."

Though he had worked for a year as an international promotions coordinator for Roc-A-Fella records, Asen was surprised at hip-hop's popularity in Morocco. The country isn't included in international marketing or promotions, because of piracy problems there. Asen asked local rap artists what they needed most in order to promote their music. Concerts, they told him. So Asen appealed to the United States Embassy and Coca-Cola to sponsor a festival, a three-city tour featuring local artists in Casablanca, Marrakech, and Meknes.

"Hip-hip is part of the democratic process. It is the empowerment and the birth of the voice of the oppressed, of the underclass," he said. "This is the young people seizing a voice for themselves, in a way they haven't done since the seventies." The Moroccan artists put their own twist on the music, with the musicians rapping in Arabic, French, Moroccan Arabic, and English. Complete with D.J.'s, break dancers, and graffiti artists, they've created an underground, indigenous hip-hop movement that has been developing for nearly a decade.

Funding was up in the air and, right to the first night of the festival, the musicians weren't sure they'd go on. Then the embassy's then-cultural attaché in Casablanca, Terry White, got the word that the funds had been approved. "Our goal was to reach out to a segment of Morocco's youth that we otherwise had trouble reaching, as we really didn't have much they were interested in, and show them another side of America than they were generally seeing on the tube," said White, in an e-mail interview from his current posting in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

A triumphant Asen filmed on stage, before 30,000 fans. Hundreds of thousands of other Moroccans also watched the show on TV. "There were quite a few spontaneous appearances of American flags in the crowds," White said. "And they were right side up and not on fire!" Moroccans enjoyed the film, and the government seemed tacitly to support it too, said Daoud Casewit, executive secretary of the Moroccan-American Commission for the Educational and Cultural Exchange, which funded Asen's Fulbright.

"They look for ways to reduce extremism and promote diversity," he said. "This is one of them." The film should likewise give Americans a more nuanced understanding of the Muslim world, Casewit said. Asen agrees. "You see an Arab kid, a Muslim kid from Morocco on the screen wearing Sean John, or a Yankees cap, rapping or dancing, and you say to yourself, 'well, wow, that's the same thing we do, that looks a lot like us,'" he said.

Hip-hop has certainly succeeded in transcending physical borders, but the themes of American and Moroccan hip-hop are decidedly different. Achraf Aarab, a member of Fnaire, Morocco's "traditional rap" group that blends American hip-hop and traditional Moroccan music, complains in the film that American hip-hop lyrics are full of whores, cars, and jewelry. The only problem in Morocco is that there is no money, he says, and admits, laughing: "If we had money, we would talk about girls, and everything would be fine."

Political, religious, and social issues are usually addressed discreetly. D.J. Key, founder of Morocco's original hip-hop association, explains in the film that certain practices integral to hip-hop are forbidden to practicing Muslims, especially mixing of the sexes. But he can't explain how he reconciles his religious beliefs with his love of hip-hip. "It's very difficult," he says.

This is a powerful scene in the film, which doesn't otherwise focus on Islam and politics. "We tried not to have a message, not force any kind of conclusion as to what this all means," said Asen, now back in Brooklyn working as an E.S.L. teacher. "This is a part of the world that is largely misunderstood, vilified, and demonized in a lot of ways. [The film] might make people feel a little less estranged from the Muslim world, to see that it's not just all terrorists and fundamentalists. Some kids are just doing hip-hop."
http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/3014.cfm
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Morocco launches oases protection programme.
12/12/2007

Morocco officially launched the first stage of a protection and promotion programme for the oases of Asrir and Tighmert, in the southern province of Guelmim, Le Matin reported Monday (December 10th). The 490,000-euro programme is part of a larger 1,000,000-euro five-year national programme to protect and develop the oases in the provinces of Guelmim, Tata and Assa-Zag. The programme is financed by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and is being implemented in partnership with Morocco's Agency for Economic and Social Development in the Southern Provinces and the Regional Council. The programme's activities include water resource management and the re-establishment of a natural ecosystem.
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2007/12/12/newsbrief-06
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Survey finds young and old Moroccans differ on religion.
14/12/2007 By Imrane Binoual

A new survey of Moroccan society offers the first scientific look at religious values and practices in the country. While young Moroccans are less religious than their elders, they are also more inclined to embrace radicalism. Detailed results of a survey conducted last year by Prologue magazine and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, made public on December 7th, provide an unprecedented look inside Moroccans' attitudes towards religious values and practises.

Sociologists found, based on interviews with more than 1,000 Moroccans, that religion's role in social activities has diminished. The lone notable exception is the month of Ramadan, when life revolves around religious tradition. "The results we obtained confirm, to our astonishment, what has been seen elsewhere: that young people are less active in religion than older people," said sociologist Mohamed El Ayadi, who authored the study alongside political scientist Mohamed Tozy and sociologist Hassan Rachik.

In the survey, 28.9% of respondents said religion should guide personal life, while 44.8% remain undecided. On the relationship between religion and politics, the results are broadly similar: 24.9% considered that religion becomes dangerous when mixed with politics and 26.1% felt the opposite. Despite an overall decline in the role of religion in daily life, there is a significant proportion of Moroccans who support political Islam and Jihadist movements. In fact, the survey shows that 17.6% of the population answered "yes" when asked: "Are you in agreement with Jihadist movements?"

The survey found that the younger the respondents, the more they say they agree with Jihadist movements. "The survey shows that 21.8% of people aged 18 to 24 agree with Jihadist movements, compared with 9.7% among the 60-plus age group," said Mohamed Sghir Janjar, director of Prologue magazine. According to Janjar, the idea to conduct the survey came after the terrorist attacks in Casablanca on May 16th, 2003. "When these events occurred, we were shaken by what had happened in our country," he said.

"There were two ways of dealing with the issue. Either react immediately and have a discussion about religion or choose, as has been done in other countries, to take time for research, consideration and fact-finding." Janjar continued, "Without empirical knowledge of Moroccan society, we were being ruled by impressions, opinions, and polemics." Until this study, he said, "no one had any concrete scientific truth based on what is actually happening in our society." He said he would like similar surveys to be conducted in other Arab countries; if a similar survey were conducted in Algeria, for example, it might reveal new reasons for the terrorist acts taking place there.

Overall, he said, the survey reveals "a kind of secularisation" or "redeployment of religion, which is lived out in a different way to suit the modern world." "Until now there have been more questions than answers, more hypotheses than real facts," said Hajo Lanz of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. "Now, thanks to this first survey, we have a better chance of understanding and following up on other surveys and analyses, to gain a deeper insight into the various aspects of the findings of this survey into religious practices." http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2007/12/14/feature-01
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Di Caprio, Moroccan director Derkaoui awarded FIFM top prize.
09/12/2007

Hollywood star Leonardo Di Caprio was recognized for his film career at the Marrakech Film Festival on Friday (December 7th), MAP reported. US movie director Martin Scorcese presented Di Caprio with the "Golden Star" ward, the film festival's highest honour. Di Caprio has spent the past three months in Morocco, working with Russell Crowe on a film about the war in Iraq under the direction of Ridley Scott. Five films starring Di Caprio will be screened at the festival, in particular "Romeo and Juliet" (1996), "Titanic" (1997), "Catch me if you Can " (2003), "Aviator " (2005) and "The 11th Hour" (2008). Moroccan director Mustafa Derkaoui was also awarded a Golden Star for his contribution to Moroccan cinema.

The FIFM, which runs until December 15th, will feature a total of 110 films from 28 countries. Czech director Milos Forman will preside over the jury, which also includes Moroccan director Hamid Benani, actor John Hurt Shekhar Kapur, director and actor, Pavel Lounguine, Aissa Maiga, Claude Millier, Parker Posey and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon. http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/general/2007/12/09/newsbrief-08
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