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Innovation platforms: A novel tool for improving food legume productivity and farmer’s livelihood, and enhancing food security in Morocco

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Title Innovation platforms: A novel tool for improving food legume productivity and farmer’s livelihood, and enhancing food security in Morocco
 
Creator Lhaloui, Saadia
 
Contributor El Aissaoui, Abdellah
Bencheqroun, Sanae Krimi
Boughlala, Mohamed
Houasli, Chafika
Dahan, Rachid
El Bouhssini, Mustapha
El Miziani, Inaam
 
Subject innovation platform
 
Description Food legumes (Faba bean, lentils, chickpea and pea) are important crops that come in rotation with
cereals in the rainfed regions of Morocco where the cereal/food legume cropping system predominates.
While these crops were very abundant in the seventies when Morocco was an exporter of these
commodities, presently, the productivity is very low, and the country is obliged to supplement the deficit
in its needs via increasing imports. The main focus of the present study, which is conducted within the
India-Morocco Food Legume Initiative, was to initiate innovation platforms (PI’s) for the different food
legume species. The objective of these PI’s is to bring together efforts and contributions of all
stakeholders (farmers, decision makers, input companies, dealers etc.) in order to diagnose and resolve the pit falls and bottlenecks and boost these crops productivity and rehabilitation. In the Chaouia region,
the Innovation Platforms were created in 2 different communities (El Gara and Ouled Bouziri) where
food legume producer associations were appointed as key players of the PI’s. Farmers’ fields were
selected to establish trials of the PI, were the different new crop management technologies that are
practical, environmentally sustainable and economically and socially appropriate, were demonstrated to
farmers in collaboration with the various regional development agencies. More than 30 trials were
established over the last 2 years, and hundreds of farmers were able to participate in the different events
held around these trials. The results showed that the PI’s are an excellent tool to disseminate integrated
crop management options of chickpea, such as IPM and cultural practices. Indeed, the major pests were
controlled (weeds, chickpea leaf minor, and Ascochyta blight) using appropriate methods, in addition to
good crop management practices such as fertilization as a starter and use of seed drill. These options
helped to clearly reduce crop losses and productivity gap due to damage inflicted by noxious insect pests,
weeds and diseases. A very net increase in yield, up to 4 folds, was obtained as compared with farmers’
practices and spring sown chickpea. This yield gain will boost farmers’ income and improve their
livelihoods, in addition to improving the national production of chickpea. Involvement of all actors of
the chickpea value-chain will result in functional innovation platform that will enhance the food security.
 
Date 2016-12-31
2017-03-08T07:14:50Z
2017-03-08T07:14:50Z
 
Type Conference Paper
 
Identifier https://mel.cgiar.org/reporting/download/hash/csM4AaM1
Saadia Lhaloui, Abdellah El Aissaoui, Sanae Krimi Bencheqroun, Mohamed Boughlala, Chafika Houasli, Rachid Dahan, Mustapha El Bouhssini, Inaam El Miziani. (31/12/2016). Innovation platforms: A novel tool for improving food legume productivity and farmer’s livelihood, and enhancing food security in Morocco. Marrakesh, Morocco.
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11766/6332
Open access
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-NC-4.0
 
Format PDF
 
Publisher International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)