Morocco has expanded its agricultural land and irrigation in recent years, but a new FAO report warns that the gains are coming as the country’s soils face mounting pressure from erosion, salinity, drought and biodiversity loss.
The country added about 240,000 hectares of agricultural land between 2015 and 2022, while the area equipped for irrigation grew by another 160,000 hectares, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s State of the World’s Soil Resources 2026 report.
Morocco is one of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa most exposed to wind erosion. The FAO also reports severe water erosion in the High Atlas, while some Moroccan mountain areas can lose more than 100 tons of soil per hectare each year.
According to the report, about 30% of Morocco’s irrigated land is estimated to be affected by salt, with average crop losses potentially reaching 50%.
More than 37,000 hectares of irrigated land have already been recorded as affected by salinity.
However, Morocco’s salt-affected land declined by an estimated 0.39% annually between 1980 and 2018, making it one of the few countries in the region to see a decrease.
The FAO identifies the coastal belt stretching from Casablanca to Tunisia as an area where threats to soil biodiversity are potentially “very high.” Drought, desertification, climate change, pollution, fires and changing land use are among the factors driving the risk.
Morocco has made limited progress in adopting soil-saving farming practices, with conservation agriculture covering only about 13,000 hectares in 2018-19, the report said.
The report also found that farming without plowing the soil in the Chaouia region increased soil organic carbon compared with conventional plowing, suggesting the practice could help improve soil health.
The FAO says Morocco’s challenge now is to balance agricultural expansion with protecting the soil that makes that production possible, particularly as hotter, drier conditions put greater pressure on land and water.
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