The drying up of water sources and the drop in the water table are pushing the governor of Tinghir province to ban the cultivation of watermelons on his territory. This fruit consumes a lot of water.
No cultivation of red and yellow watermelons throughout the 2023-2024 agricultural season. So decided the governor of the province of Tinghir who issued a decree to this effect. The objective is to rationalize the use of water resources because of the scarcity of rain. This order is based on the provisions of ministerial decision No. 1323.22, jointly signed by the Minister of Agriculture, Mohamed Sadiki, the Minister of the Interior, Abdelouafi Laftit, and the Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget, Fouzi Lekjaa, establishing the terms and conditions for granting the subsidy for hydro-agricultural development on farms, reports the Arabic-speaking daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia. In article 6, it is specified that the most water-intensive crops, concerning localized irrigation, are excluded.
The decree of the governor of Tinghir is also based on a joint decision, made official on September 22, 2022, by a signature between officials designated at the Ministry of Agriculture and the delegated ministry responsible for the Budget concerning the cultivation of avocado trees, watermelons reds as well as new citrus plantations which are no longer eligible for a subsidy for localized irrigation.
In Tata, residents had expressed their opposition to watermelon cultivation because it dries up groundwater and puts them in difficulty in times of drought and water crisis. A prefectural decree was then issued to prohibit this cultivation, but also all work to enlarge or deepen wells already authorized, the use of crops that consume an enormous amount of water, the overexploitation of groundwater, the suspension of granting of new authorizations for the digging of wells, as well as the fight against the transfer of water from already existing hollows or illegal wells. But lobbies are putting pressure on local authorities to resume cultivation.
