Irrigation Systems for Fruit Trees in Africa

The High Atlas Foundation has been generously granted land by the High Commission of Waters and Forests in the Ait M’hamid municipality of the Azilal province upon which walnut and almond seeds as well as medicinal and aromatic plants will be planted in a nursery that will be managed by the local women’s association. This plot of land for a new nursery, that will profoundly benefit the entire region and that will be a revenue source for the member’s of the women’s group of this municipality, requires the installation of pressure-drip irrigation systems, as well as a basin to contain water for irrigation. 

Morocco is in a transition from subsistence agricultural practices and moving toward a more cash-flow based agricultural production which would be optimized by including organic procedures. As part of this transition, the country is in massive need of organic trees and plants, water efficiency systems, certifications of organic product, and processing, as well as broadened domestic and international commercialization that benefits rural farming families and their cooperatives. This tree and plant nursery will produce hundreds of thousands of trees and plants, provide an important model and training area for water conservation practices. Furthermore, the High Atlas Foundation is dedicated to the entire agricultural value chain and will work with the people of Ait M’Hamid as they build a farm-to-fork line of production. 

However, with the planting season starting January 2016, we now face the basic necessity of installing the irrigation system in order to launch this essential initiative for the municipality and province with your partnership. 

The following is a picture is of a drip irrigation in Ait M’hamid. Our hope is that we can achieve the same in in the women’s cooperative in the area.

The High Atlas Foundation secured organic certification with 23 villages of the Toubkal municipality, located in the province of Taroudant, on the south side of the High Atlas Mountains. This certification is for a 200 hectare area of walnuts and a 100 hectare area of almonds. It involved 693 farming families and is the first to have been secured for any product and in any part of the mountain region. Having vastly expanded the supply of walnut and almond product in the municipality through the planting of tree nurseries and with the increased value of the product enabled by organic certification, water-efficiency will create the opportunity to significantly expand the amount of arable land. 

The Ouray irrigation project, which will profoundly benefit 14 of the 23 villages, has been identified by the local people as their top priority initiative. The project diverts the water of a spring located 3,000 meters above the villages, along the summit of a mountain range. This will enable the building of new agricultural terraces on the entire face of the mountainside. Currently, the water from the spring produces 70 liters per second and goes straight down the mountain and into a river. The management of the water amongst the benefiting 14 villages, which includes approximately 3,500 people, has been agreed upon in recent months, has been a challenging yet productive process. 

We hope that you write to us for more information about this irrigation project which, combined with nurseries, organic certification, and the value-added processing facility, will create an agricultural boon for the region and a model for the nation. 

For more information, please contact yossef@highatlasfoundation.org