Food security in Morocco: Risk factors and governance

Abstract

Food security is a major issue and a growing challenge in the Global South. Its absence affects negatively the health and education of people as well as their ability to work and claim their rights. With its commitment to sustainable development, Morocco has implemented several strategies to modernize its agricultural sector, to sustainably manage its natural resources, and to ensure a social and ecological sustainable agricultural transition. The sectoral approaches adopted to improve food security have recently shown their limitations and proved ineffective, as the degradation of biodiversity and unsustainable use of resources are increasing in addition to a noticeable rise of social-ecological inequalities. The main objective of this chapter is to study and assess the food security situation in Morocco by identifying and assessing the various challenges facing food security and response mechanisms adopted by policy makers. The assessment of public policies in the area of food security reveals the lack of appropriate and robust planning and assessment tools of project impacts, which hinders the capacity to meet populations' expectations, particularly in rural areas. In addition, decisive actions are needed to support income-generating initiatives, to mitigate the effects of climate change, and to strengthen knowledge and social-ecological systems. The success of the national food security policy remains as well predicated on the mobilization of all stakeholders.