Rabat – Grupo Alcoaxarquia, an agri-food company headquartered in the Spanish municipality of Velez-Malaga, has set up a subsidiary in Morocco as part of a strategic move to penetrate the North African country’s burgeoning avocado industry.
While this expansion promises a significant increase in avocado production, it also highlights the implications of water scarcity and the complexities of growing a water-hungry crop in a drought-prone region.
Between July 2022 and May 2023, Morocco established itself as a major player in the global avocado market, exporting an impressive 45,000 tonnes of avocados worth $139 million. The Moroccan avocado promotion campaign is scheduled to run until February or March 2024.
During this period, the Moroccan subsidiary set itself ambitious targets, aiming to process and ship around 5,000 tonnes of avocados to various European markets.
Morocco’s accession to the rank of “ninth Andalusian province” for avocado production arouses a mixture of optimism and apprehension. While it prolongs the avocado season in southern Spain, it accentuates the problem posed by water scarcity.
Alcoaxarquia’s entry into Morocco is based on “the country’s agro-climatic conditions, similar to those of some production areas in Spain,” said Juan Becerra, the Spanish firm’s Managing Director, stressing: “Therefore, the Moroccan production complements the Spanish.”
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Although this is in line with their production objectives, the issue of water supply is now a major concern in Morocco, amplified by the repercussions of the drought.
Morocco’s recent ordeals, marked by severe drought, have necessitated the adoption of strict water regulations. This situation highlights the urgent need to address the water-intensive nature of avocado growing in a region where water resources are already limited.
As agriculture alone consumes 88% of water in Morocco, Grupo Alcoaxarquia’s expansion into the country represents a major step forward for the global avocado industry. But the move also underlines the imperative of solving the water problems associated with growing water-thirsty produce in drought-stricken regions.
The Group’s decision to set up a subsidiary in Morocco comes at a time when faced with the precariousness of the country’s drought, the Moroccan Ministry of Agriculture announced in September 2022 that it would put an end to subsidies for the cultivation of certain fruits, including avocados.
Harmonizing agricultural expansion with water conservation remains a key concern. As Grupo Alcoaxarquia pushes the limits of avocado production in this arid land, the simultaneous struggle to secure water resources in the face of impending scarcity takes center stage, forming a delicate narrative within Morocco’s thriving avocado industry.
