OCP-Al Moutmir: The yield of certain crops increased by up to 21% in the 2020/21 campaign

The initiative of OCP’s Al Moutmir platforms installed in fruit and vegetable cultivation fields has increased yields by 6% to 21% compared to controls and depending on the type of crop, indicate the results of the agricultural campaign 2020-2021. Zucchini, onion and potato recorded the highest yield improvement rates.

The integrated management program for market gardening based on soil analyses, the rationalization of fertilization with the use of tailor-made formulas produced by smart blenders from OCP’s Al Moutmir initiative has announced its results for the 2020 agricultural campaign -2021.

The program allows the monitoring of market gardening by OCP engineers who accompany farmers throughout the process and explain to them the best techniques to obtain the best possible harvests, in particular thanks to advice for the good management of irrigation. and integrated management of crop diseases and pests.

For the 2020-2021 campaign, 926 market gardening demonstration platforms have been installed, spread over the different agricultural provinces of Morocco for the benefit of 386 farmers.

They targeted 7 market gardening crops and types of management (in particular by gravity irrigation and localized irrigation) in the different agricultural zones. In total, the OCP-Al Moutmir initiative has enabled the installation of more than 2,752 market gardening demonstration platforms since its launch, benefiting 1,370 farmers.

The 2020-2021 agricultural campaign has driven Morocco’s economic growth over the past year. Thanks to the Al Moutmir initiative, the farmers were able to increase their yield, and this was reflected in the results on the vegetable crops that followed this program.

The potato is the crop that took first place in terms of the installation of platforms this last agricultural campaign with 33% of them, or 308 in total. The second crop most followed by the platforms is that of watermelon with 171 platforms or 19% of their total.

The melon follows with 142 platforms or 15%, the onion 11%, the tomato 10%; peanuts 5% and courgettes 5% as well, and finally artichokes 2% with 16 installations in total.

In terms of yield, zucchini recorded the highest yield rate, with 28.2 t/ha representing a gain of 21% compared to agricultural plots that do not follow Al Moutmir.

The second crop having recorded the best rate of improvement, that of the onion, with 13.9% more compared to the controls and totaling 62.1 t/ha of yield. Not far away comes the potato with an increase of 13.1% producing 43.2 t/ha.

Watermelon crops follow, with 51.9 t/ha with a gain of 9.7%, melon 36.4 t/ha with a gain of 8.3% and tomato with 89.3 t/ha with a gain of gain of 5.7% and which at the same time displays the largest quantity of vegetables produced out of all the 7 crops studied.

Al Moutmir’s results also show an improvement in fruit weight. “Improved technical management as well as the use of new technologies have made a remarkable contribution to improving the weight of the fruits by 5 to 23% and the size by 2 to 5% compared to the control plots and according to cultures”, indicate the results of the initiative.

Still on the fruits, “the sugar level in Brix degree has been improved from 0.9% to 2% compared to the controls depending on the culture”, adds the same source.

The Al Moutmir platforms concern several crops, in particular those of cereals and legumes, arboriculture, and market gardening. They are presented as a popularization tool for demonstrating scientific recommendations and agricultural innovations.

The farmer partners and volunteers of this initiative co-constructed and carried out in partnership with the agricultural ecosystem and in particular the academic scientific ecosystem of Morocco (INRA, IAV, ENA UM6P), subsequently become true ambassadors of good practices in matter of agriculture.

“These platforms are installed in the fields of volunteer farmers and demonstrate the considerable impact of the adoption of best agricultural practices on the yield and quality of agricultural production, the income generated and also on the reasoned consumption of fertilizers”, indicates OCP-Al Moutmir.