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Rabat – A 2016 Global Food Policy Report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) classified Morocco as one of the world’s most food-secure states.
According to the 2016 Global Food Policy report, the fifth in an annual series that provides a comprehensive overview of major food policy developments and events, Morocco is ranked 42nd in a list of countries that do not face starvation.
The report pointed out underway efforts by the kingdom to enhance its food security indicators while several Middle Eastern and North African countries lagged far behind.
According to data by IFRPI, starvation in Morocco has seen a 10 percent fall. The Global Hunger Index scores scrutinizing Morocco’s food performance across various years highlighted that only 9,5 percent of the Moroccan population face food insecurity and starvation threats in 2015, down from 18.7 percent in 1990.
The report listed Morocco as one of the leading states in the North African region that managed to trim down hunger in the period from 1990 to 2016.
Countries like Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saoudi Arabia followed Morocco’s track while such countries as Iraq and Yemen trailed behind due to internal turmoil.
The report sounded the alarm over the dark figures in malnutrition across the Black Continent, with Central African regions being in the forefront of the famine blacklist.
A report delivered at the House of Councilors, the upper house of the Parliament of Morocco, last August pointed out the quasi-total eradication of undernourishment in Morocco. The phenomenon was recorded with low percentages in rural areas and among Bedouin communities.
According to statistical dataset outlined by the House of Councilors report, 0.5 percent of the Moroccans face underfeeding down from 4.6 percent in 1990.
According to a sub-section of the report entitled “Average annual growth of agricultural output and total factor productivity (TFP) and levels of land and labor productivity,” Morocco’s land productivity saw a leap from 167 in 1990 to 320 in 2013. Land productivity designates the agricultural gross production per hectare of agricultural land.
Recent years saw notable developments in Morocco’s commitment to eradicate hunger and under nutrition.
The Strategic Partnership Program supported by IFPRI, which aims to provide smallholders with better access to markets for high-value commodities and to opportunities related to climate change mitigation, implemented four activities in Morocco related to market access, climate change mitigation, and nutrition sustainability.
Nonetheless, Morocco has to keep up underway efforts to sustainably reduce famine and end hunger and malnutrition.
Optimizing national productivity rates and promoting healthy food systems remain, therefore, paramount challenges for the Kingdom at a time when nearly 800 million people around the world are reported as undernourished.
