Digital agriculture at the centre of the debate

Integrating digital transformation into the agricultural sector is one of the major challenges facing Moroccan agriculture. It was in this context that the Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Morocco, in collaboration with OCP, organised, on Wednesday 17 October, a round table on the theme “Digital agriculture: what opportunities for Morocco?”, attended in particular by Sami Zerilli, Honorary President of the CCSM, and Majid Lahlou, Director of Information Systems at the Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and Forests. “Digital transformation is today a central element in the governance of our department. It allows us to increase organisational synergies and to provide steering and performance-monitoring information to the department’s systems, particularly with regard to decision-making,” explained Majid Lahlou when presenting his ministerial programme.

A budget of 30 million dirhams

Several solutions have thus been developed by the 30 engineers assigned to this department. The objective: to support small farmers, who make up “90% of the Moroccan agricultural fabric, with plots of less than 5 hectares”, said Majid Lahlou. The ministry’s representative also revealed the budget allocated to the digital agriculture project, speaking of “30 million dirhams”. A figure considered rather low by the audience but “to be put into perspective since it only concerns the central department”, according to Mr Lahlou. Digital transformation has saved 400 million dirhams of the six billion planned for the programme to mitigate the effects of drought.

OCP develops its own programme

As partner of the event, OCP was also present through AgriEdge. “This structure exists to work on precision agriculture and serve Moroccan farmers,” explained Faissal Sehbaoui, BU Head for OCP- AgriEdge. “The service is in fact offered to smallholders,” according to the BU head, who specified that “the average cost of an intervention is 150,000 dirhams”. This new platform works on agricultural data, which it transforms into decision-making information for farmers. “It converts the plant into data,” noted Faissal Sehbaoui. Agri Edge offers farmers three services: rational fertilisation, precision irrigation and integrated pest management. “Having completed the theoretical development stage, the business unit has also completed the testing phase for rational fertilisation and precision irrigation,” shared Faissal Sehbaoui. He went on to announce: “It is currently in the industrialisation phase. A phase during which it would be required to cooperate with the ministry.” Furthermore, all these solutions will be presented at the second edition of the “Agri Analytics Days” on 16 and 17 April 2019, organised on the theme of precision agriculture, concluded Faissal Sehbaoui.

Testimonials:

Digital agriculture is a very present theme in our department’s day-to-day work. Today, I presented the ministry’s support for digital technology in the governance of sectoral policy, in particular the Green Morocco Plan and all the solutions put in place to monitor the implementation and deployment of this project. The value of this meeting is first of all to share our experience of digital technology, but also to see what is being done elsewhere, through the operators of the Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Morocco, and also on the side of one of our partners, OCP. The exchanges were very fruitful and I hope that we will be able to establish a platform for debate and become a driving force for proposals for the various political players and those in the agricultural sector. The objectives are to improve Morocco’s competitiveness and ensure food security for our continent. Majid Lahlou , Central Director of Information Systems at the Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and Forests.

For OCP, Morocco can become a driving force in the digital transformation of the agricultural sector in Africa by devising tailored solutions with continental potential. Digital technology could lead several stakeholders in the farmer’s ecosystem to connect in order to offer an integrated, value-creation-oriented range of services. Thanks to the possibilities offered by mobility and data analysis, digital technology allows OCP to reduce the distance with farmers in order to better understand and serve their needs. Adil Ousti , Head of Digital Factory, OCP Group