By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Morocco’s grain harvest hit a record high of 10.32 million tonnes in 2021, an increase of 221 percent compared to the previous crop year, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement on Monday.
In 2021, Moroccan farmers reaped about 5.06 tonnes of soft wheat, 2.48 tonnes of durum wheat and 2.78 tonnes of barley, the statement added.
The report said that with this “excellent” grain harvest, agriculture will account for more than 18.2 percent of Morocco’s economy in 2021, with the added value reaching 14.7 billion U.S. dollars.
The 2020-2021 crop year is historically the second-best after 2014-2015, it said.
This harvest performance is mainly due to abundant rainfall this year, which was 32 percent higher than the previous year, although less than the average figure of the last 30 years, Xinhua news reports.