A billion trees to reduce poverty among Morocco’s farming communities

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Goats in Morocco have become very good at climbing Argan trees. via AsapSCIENCE follower,

How to Plant a Billion Trees in Morocco

By Yossef Ben-Meir

A billion indigenous trees of different varieties hold the potential to significantly reduce widespread poverty among Morocco’s farming communities. The government is establishing community tree nurseries. It is an initiative that the people should wholeheartedly embrace.

Argan trees (Argania spinosa) – http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Plantation_arganier_Luc_Viatour.JPG

Now is the planting season. As the Moroccan people do the best they can to plant trees and herbs that will enhance their future and bring food security, it is also worth asking a question: How can farming families plant, adding value to their product according to their potential, thus overcoming subsistence practices that trap them in poverty?

The olive’s history in Morocco can be traced to Greek colonizers on Sicily. – http://www.plan-it-fez.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/olive-trees-1024×768.jpg

The good news is that the practical elements of a solution exist. Now it is a matter of bringing pilot projects to scale for the nation, as enormous as the challenges are to planting on this magnitude, with their implications for water management and the absorption by markets of far greater quantities of produce.

INBUILT FACTORS FOR SUCCESS: PLANTS AND LAND

 

Read the full article: allAfrica