Governance, framework conditions, overall assessment of the projects, achievements of the animal and plant sectors… The Court of Auditors reviewed the main mechanisms of the agricultural aggregation system with the aim of issuing appropriate recommendations for its development.
In its annual report for the year 2021, published this week, the Court of Auditors examined in detail the agricultural aggregation system adopted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and forests. This agricultural organization model provided for the realization of 286 projects for a total investment of 46,476 MDH, with the objective of aggregating 377,365 farmers by 2020.
With regard to the governance and framework conditions of the aggregation system, the Court of Auditors noted the absence of mechanisms for monitoring the performance indicators of aggregation projects, in particular production, yields, processed and marketed production , as well as their shares in the global indicators.
In addition, the body detected a lack of involvement of the interprofessions in the preparation of the framework conditions for the implementation of the aggregation projects, noting that this had a negative impact on the success of this experience for certain sectors. This concerns in particular the olive and cereal sectors, whose achievements at the end of 2020 did not exceed 10 projects.
In addition, a slowness was noted in the process of bringing aggregation projects into compliance with the implementing texts of Law No. 04.12 relating to agricultural aggregation promulgated in 2015. At the end of 2021, only 23 projects were in progress. compliance on the 63 projects registered on the national register of aggregation, said the Court.
On the other hand, the authority points out that the aggregation carried out through the constitution of small agricultural cooperatives remains little exploited, although it seems to have a chance of succeeding and functioning better. As for the non-formalized aggregation, particularly in the dairy and cereal sector, it constitutes a significant potential that is not sufficiently exploited, given that nearly 200,000 farmers work with the aggregation system without being aggregated and without benefiting from subsidies from the State.
The Court affirms in particular that the contribution of the public-private partnership in boosting aggregation is weak. Only 16 projects were carried out out of 126 committed projects and concern recovery units.
Regarding the overall assessment of the aggregation projects, the body noted that at the end of April 2020, the achievements were below the targeted objectives despite the efforts made. Of all the projects planned by the Regional Agricultural Plans (PARs) updated in 2015, only 63 have been carried out. It should be noted that these projects made it possible to aggregate an area of 182,853 ha and a livestock population of 126,238 head for the benefit of 56,473 aggregated members, ie respectively 23%, 8% and 15% of the objectives set.
The report reveals, on the other hand, the need to overcome the constraints experienced by the aggregation system in the dairy and red meat sectors, as well as a need to control the marketing circuits in the white meat sector. . It should be mentioned that only 8 aggregation projects in the dairy sector out of a total of 32 have been carried out, i.e. a rate of 25%, due to the feverishness of the milk market and its instability, in addition to the presence of an informal circuit within the markets and the organizational problems experienced by the Moroccan Interprofessional Milk Federation (FIMALAIT).
With regard to aggregation in the red meat sector, the Court indicated that only 2 projects have been implemented, ie 10% of the objective. This can be explained by organizational and restructuring constraints, the delay in modernizing slaughterhouses, the multiplicity of intermediaries and the boom in informal sales and slaughtering. At the level of white meats, the aggregation certificates were granted to only 2 projects, meaning a rate of 14% of the projects envisaged, mainly due to the limited interest of professionals in the sector following the marketing circuits and the behavior of the consumer.
As for the achievements of the plant sectors, the Court observed that the cereal and citrus sectors still need to be improved. The cereal sector was satisfied with 5 aggregation projects out of 27 planned, a situation which is attributed to the multiplicity of intermediaries in the marketing circuit. The citrus sector, for its part, recorded a total of 14 aggregated projects out of 41, while the olive sector did not exceed a project completion rate of 12%.
In this regard, the Court recommended to the supervising ministry to set up a monitoring and evaluation system specific to aggregation, through the establishment of project performance indicators and the implementation of monitoring tools. follow up. In particular, it recommends taking the necessary measures to overcome the constraints that block the success of these projects, including those relating to marketing and processing at the level of intermediaries and wholesale markets, while establishing the conditions for strengthening the trust between aggregates and aggregators.
It should be noted that the evaluation of this system was carried out through an approach based on surveys of stakeholders, conducted by the Agricultural Development Agency (ADA), in collaboration with the Regional Directorates of Agriculture (DRA), and only concerned 2% of aggregated members, whose overall number is 56,473 farmers.