Report: The potato value chain in Morocco

The Wageningen Research Foundation (WR), being subsidised by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality in the context of the Policy Support ‘Sustainable agricultural development in a food system approach’ published a study on the potato value chain in Morocco.

The report investigates the impact of activities in potato chains as part of a regional food system on the SDGs and their underlying targets and indicators.

It provides a first scan of the potato food chains in Morocco and its current sustainability, by reviewing the options to further strengthen market and trade relations between the Netherlands and Morocco. Therefore, both Moroccan and Dutch stakeholders were interviewed in this study.

For this review, the following questions were studied:

• How can the potato value chains be described?
• How are the value chains developed in Morocco at this moment and how is the estimated development within the coming years?
• Which sustainability factors are involved in different steps of the value chains (like use of water, nutrients, pesticides, energy; losses of inputs and harvest, quality, employment, equity, education etc.)?
• How can negative impacts be minimized and positive impacts be enhanced (targets)?
• Which stakeholders are involved or have to be engaged?

The study has been performed by a literature search on potato cultivation and potato value chains and by interviewing two Dutch companies trading seed potatoes in Morocco for years and three stakeholders in Morocco.