Maryam Taidi-Safi
Morocco tops the list of "big" exporters and contributes about a third of global production.
According to official statistics, the Kingdom's exports of adult plants are estimated at between 12,000 and 14,000 tons, with a financial value of about $ 25 million annually.
Adults are a spiny plant, which produces small green grains, harvested in the summer, and most of its production is for export.
The cultivation of adults in the province of Safi, which represents the most important productive areas in Morocco, planted area of between 5,000 and 7 thousand hectares.
The plant appeared in Safi in 1920, following the locusts carried by the southern Europeans and adopted by farmers, said Mohamed Znaini, president of the Green Agricultural Association for the Valuation of Adults in the Sabt Kzoula region (Safi province, south of Casablanca). The region as their main activity, to suit the region's rocky soil and hot climate to the conditions of the development of the spinal plant.
He works with young people from the region to value the adults by being patient and filling them in bottles for internal consumption.
This is the official product in the province of Safi, and contributes to the economic movement in the region, where families depend directly on the payment of daily living bills.
From the seeds of adults prepare seedlings for five months, then planted in the fields and depend on the irrigation system, and after one to three years become a shrub begins to produce, a perennial plant, and yields an average of two tons per hectare.