High prices of agricultural products in Morocco.. Learn about the government's measures to reduce them

Rabat

Providing the basic food basket has become a burden on the shoulders of poor Moroccan families. The prices of all products have increased, including vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry, eggs, oils, and others.

Controversy escalated over the phenomenon of multiplicity of intermediaries between the farmer and the final consumer, and the role of monopolists and speculators in igniting this crisis.

Samira Fadli says, in her interview with Al-Jazeera Net, that the wave of high prices has put her at a crossroads and threatened the continuation of her business. She has been running a restaurant for 3 years in the city of El-Jadida and has 8 workers.

She confirms that the price hike has become a nightmare, as she wakes up every day to new increases, and her project has become threatened and unstable.

It had to reduce employment, change the menu several times, and cancel some meals because of the cost of its ingredients, which became very expensive.

The head of the National Association of Consumer Protection Societies, Wadih Madih, classifies the groups most affected by the price hike in the fragile and poor groups, then the middle class that is no longer able to purchase its basic necessities.

Madih told Al-Jazeera Net that the association monitored the rise in food prices during a year, and found that the price hike amounted to 800 dirhams last year and 1500 dirhams this year.

He pointed out that the middle class is no longer able to save, and was forced to reduce any additional expenses in treatment, education and food, stressing the need for government intervention to find radical solutions.

Prices of potatoes, onions and tomatoes have reached unprecedented levels in Morocco (Al-Jazeera)

who is in Charge?

Government officials blamed speculators and brokers for the rise in prices in the markets, and the cold weather affected a number of agricultural products, while experts and civil society activists believe that the increase in the export of agricultural products affected the volume of goods available in the local market.

The report "Morocco in the face of supply shocks" issued by the World Bank indicated a large gap in food prices between producers and retailers.

The report emphasized that the neediest families are still suffering severely from the effects of high food prices and inflation.

The director of the Government Labor Observatory, Muhammad Jadry, confirms the existence of imbalances in the supply chains due to what he called "immoral practices" by speculators, brokers, and monopolists, which cause prices to skyrocket.

He says, in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, that speculators and monopolists benefit from weak price control by the regulatory agencies, whether at the central or local level.

He emphasized that the small farmer is the weakest link in this chain, as he sells vegetables and fruits for 1 or 3 dirhams, but they reach the final consumer for 13 dirhams (about 1.5 US dollars).

Wadih Madih pointed to the overlapping of tasks between the departments concerned with monitoring the markets. Despite their multiplicity, their field work is weak due to the limited human and logistical resources, which led to chaos, which was exploited by what he called "crisis traders" to raise prices through illegal speculation and secret storage of commodities.

export

The head of the Wholesale Market for Vegetables and Fruits Association in Casablanca, Abd al-Razzaq al-Shabi, believes that drought, cold, and the high cost of seeds and fuel are not the only reasons behind the high prices of agricultural products in the markets.

In his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, he attributes the exacerbation of this crisis to the export of agricultural products to Europe and Africa without taking into account the needs of the local market.

He confirms that agricultural products such as carrots, fennel and cauliflower are not exported, and that is why they are available in the market and their prices have not increased.

He added that randomness in export would harm food security, and stressed the need to rationalize the export of agricultural products and take into account the needs of local markets.

Even the popular markets on the outskirts of Rabat witnessed a significant increase in the prices of agricultural products (Al-Jazeera).

measures to reduce prices

Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch confirmed that the prices of food products such as vegetables, meat and oils began to decline due to the measures taken by the government a week ago and due to the improvement in climatic conditions, indicating that prices will continue to decline in the coming days until they reach normal levels before Ramadan.

The Moroccan government announced a week ago a number of measures due to the escalating complaints of high prices, and launched campaigns to monitor the supply of food to markets and fight speculation in various regions.

The monitoring committees recorded violations related to prices and food quality, and announced the discovery of secret warehouses designated for storing some foodstuffs for the purpose of speculation, and legal measures were taken against the perpetrators of these violations.

On the other hand, the government decided to abolish the value-added tax, and to stop collecting customs duties on importing cows destined for slaughter in order to reduce the selling prices of meat, in addition to continuing to subsidize transportation prices that would contribute to stabilizing food prices.

Red meat prices witnessed an unprecedented rise due to an imbalance in meat production, according to the statements of the Minister of Agriculture and Marine Fishing, Muhammad Siddiqui, who indicated that the main reasons are due to drought and the lack of artificial insemination of cows during the two years of the pandemic.

The government revealed its intention to import at least 40,000 heads of cows before Ramadan as an initial batch, as part of a plan to import 200,000 heads of cows by next summer.

Since the beginning of last January, the Kingdom of Morocco has imported 5,000 heads of calves destined for slaughter through the border post of the port of Tangier Med.

The government announced the cessation of exporting vegetables and fruits to Africa to ensure that the national market is supplied with the main requirements of agricultural products.

Cautious optimism

Muhammad Jedry indicates that the measures that the government announced and began implementing, such as canceling the import fee for cows and stopping the export of agricultural products to the African market, will enable the local market to be supplied with its needs of these products during the coming weeks, which will lead to a gradual decrease in prices.

He stressed that the campaigns carried out by the monitoring committees in the markets and shops will deter brokers and speculators, calling for supporting the work of these committees by providing more human and logistical resources and financial incentives.

The spokesman called on the government to reconsider the supply chain so that brokers do not exploit small farmers.

Jedry expects that the measures announced by the government will ease the impact of the crisis, gradually and in stages.