Taounate
More actions
| Taounate | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Rif Mountains |
| Geography | |
| Country | Morocco |
| Province/State | Taounate Province |
| Coordinates | 34.41, -4.76 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 4,200 km² |
| Terrain | Low mountains of the south-central Rif; approximately Taounate Province outside the Cercle de Ghafsai |
| Growing history | |
| Dated accessions | 2023 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 8 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Taounate is a landrace cannabis growing area in Taounate Province, on the southern side of the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco. The national cannabis survey of 2004 found 14,718 hectares of cannabis in the province, 12 per cent of the country's total.[1] Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy and Kenza Afsahi place the province on the southern limit of the historic cannabis region.[2] Since 2022 it has been one of three provinces in which cannabis may be licensed.[3]
Arrival of the crop
The 2004 survey described cannabis spreading south into Taounate Province over the previous twenty years from the old growing communes of the central Rif.[1] Its sociological study examined two of the province's communes on the front of that spread, where the crop was recent and grown in secret. Mezraoua, with its cereals, olives and livestock, held back the advance towards the south of the province and the streams feeding the Al Wahda dam, while about a quarter of its people left each year for seasonal work at Ketama. Khlalfa, next to the Ketama area, took up the crop from 1998 through its seasonal workers there, and it spread there on an unprecedented scale only from 2000. By 2004 cannabis covered a third of the rain-fed farmland of the Beni Khaled machiakha of Khlalfa and more than two-thirds of that of Ahl El Oued.[1]
Mohammed Hini, Mohammed Errafik and Fatima Zahra Boujaddi, who surveyed 200 growers in the Taounate circle, date the crop's arrival in the Jebala country of Taounate to the middle of the 1990s. It appeared first at the douar of Lmchaa, in the commune of Oudka in the Ghafsai circle, spread through that circle, and reached the communes of the Taounate circle in 1998 and 1999. There the first growers were the douars of Taounate Lqchour and Allawa in Khlalfa, close to Ketama, and the crop moved on to Zrizer, Bouhouda, Bni Oulid, Thar Souk, Fennassa Bab El Hit and Bni Ounjel Tafraout.[4]: 263–264 Citing the 2003 survey, they put the largest areas, 1,000 to 1,800 hectares each, in the communes nearest Al Hoceima Province, Khlalfa, Tamedit and Bouhouda, and relate the pattern to their nearness to Ketama and to the young men of those communes who had worked in its fields. Not every douar took the crop up: Sahel Boutaher in Mezraoua and Boukenala in Aïn Mediouna refused it, holding it forbidden by Islam.[4]: 264–265
Area under cannabis
The joint surveys of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Moroccan authorities found 25,720 hectares of cannabis in the province in 2003. In 2004 the area fell by 43 per cent to 14,718 hectares, after awareness campaigns by the local authorities, even though the 2004 survey covered more of the province than the first one had.[1] In 2005 it stood at 12,362 hectares, 17 per cent of the national total. The province has more farmland than any other in the survey area, and cannabis covered only 3 per cent of it. Its yields were the lowest of the provinces measured, 186 kilograms of dried plant a hectare on rain-fed land and 732 on irrigated land, and the government reported eradicating 3,000 hectares there that year.[5]
Hybrids, water and forest
Hini and his colleagues report that the hybrids khardala and critical yield about four times as much as the local rain-fed plant, and their 2025 field survey found hybrid cannabis returning more than twelve times as much per hectare as cereals. A plot of 100 square metres of khardala takes more than 2,000 litres at each watering, twice a week through the summer, for a crop that needs about six months to ripen. Growers dug wells to meet the demand: 75 at the douar of Taounate Lqchour in Khlalfa, and 45 at Bni Berber in Bouhouda in 2016 and 2017. The authors link the spread of cannabis to the loss of 5,482 hectares of forest cover in the circle between 1996 and 2025, concentrated in the communes next to Ketama, and to conflicts over land and water.[4]: 264–269
Legal status
A decree of March 2022 under Law 13-21 on the licit uses of cannabis allows cannabis cultivation and production to be licensed only in the provinces of Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen and Taounate.[3] In 2024 the national cannabis agency, ANRAC, authorised the use of local cannabis seed for 106 producers' cooperatives, and TelQuel reported that cooperatives in Taounate Province were among the first to benefit.[6]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230001 | Khlafa 71 (Marzaahin) General Population 2023 | Marzaahin | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230002 | Khlafa 72 (Tawarta) General Population 2023 | Tawarta | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230003 | Zrizar 73 (Imardan) General Population 2023 | Imardan | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230004 | Zrizar 74 (Koudia) General Population 2023 | Koudia | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230005 | Bouhada 75 (Ouled Hssain) General Population 2023 | Ouled Hssain | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230006 | Bouhada 76 (Bni Hssain) General Population 2023 | Bni Hssain | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230007 | Bni ounjel 78 (Tafraout) General Population 2023 | Tafraout | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230016 | Bni Salman 93 (El Manaa) General Population 2023 | El Manaa |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Agence pour la Promotion et le Développement Economique et Social des Préfectures et Provinces du Nord du Royaume (May 2005). Maroc: Enquête sur le cannabis 2004 (PDF) (Report) (in français). UNODC.
- ↑ Chouvy, Pierre-Arnaud; Afsahi, Kenza (2014). "Hashish revival in Morocco". International Journal of Drug Policy. 25 (3): 416–423. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.01.001.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Décret n° 2-22-159 du 15 chaabane 1443 (18 mars 2022) pris pour l'application de certaines dispositions de la loi n° 13-21 relative aux usages licites du cannabis" (PDF). Bulletin Officiel (in français) (7080) (Édition de traduction officielle ed.). Rabat: 527. 7 April 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Hini, Mohammed; Errafik, Mohammed; Boujaddi, Fatima Zahra (15 August 2026). توسع زراعة القنب الهندي وإشكالية تدهور الموارد الطبيعية بالريف الأوسط الجنوبي "دائرة تاونات نموذجا" [The expansion of cannabis cultivation and the problem of natural resource degradation in the south-central Rif: the Taounate circle]. Revue Géomatique et Gestion des Territoires (in العربية). 3 (1): 260–271. doi:10.34874/PRSM.GGT-2026.V3.N1.9102.
- ↑ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Agence pour la Promotion et le Développement Economique et Social des Préfectures et Provinces du Nord du Royaume (January 2007). Maroc: Enquête sur le cannabis 2005 (PDF) (Report) (in français). UNODC.
- ↑ "A Taounate, les coopératives premiers bénéficiaires de la culture licite du cannabis". TelQuel (in français). 23 August 2024. Retrieved 18 October 2026.