David's Digest

Several of us on the Farmers Weekly Farm Study Tour of Morocco grow sugar beet in the UK. Indeed we had spent a fair bit of our journey bitching about the problems of lifting last years crop, complaining about British Sugar and calculating how much money we'd lost.

So it was refreshing, when we got to the Beni Mellal area of the country, to find that sugar beet were looking particularly well this year. Drilled last October the roots were already about three inches in diameter and the leaves were bright green with no sign of disease - or, of course, frost.

The roots were scheduled to be lifted in June, we were told, and expected to yield well up to the average for the area - around 70t/ha, although best yields can sometimes reach over 100t/ha. Very similar to a good year back home, we thought, although the price received by growers is rather better at around £30/t for roots at 16.5% sugar with the processing company taking full responsibility for transporting roots to the factory.

But there the similarities ended. In order to grow the crop at all on the very sandy land and with temperatures in the low 40'sC in the summer it is necessary to trickle irrigate the crop regularly through small tubes placed between every second row.

Even more foreign to us, these days, was the information that the Moroccan crop was still lifted and topped by hand. The older UK farmers in the party remembered the days when we did the same in this country but none of us would like to return to those back breaking days.

But there was one other fact that had a familiar ring to it. The area grown to beet each year in the area varies from between 11,000 and 22,000ha's because some years growers are unhappy with the price being offered by the processors. This year about 15,000ha's are being grown, so we assumed neither party was particularly happy.

A bit like all of us in the sugar producing business in the UK, we decided.

Olive trees are ubiquitous in Morocco. You see them in avenues alongside roads, scattered, apparently randomly around the countryside, and, of course, in ordered cultivated plantations. One of the best of these visited by the Farmers Weekly Farm Study Tour recently was a family enterprise managed by a woman - which was quite surprising in a Muslim country but she was certainly not unique in Morocco where emancipation is progressing apace.

The family had been farming in the area near the city of Meknes for fifty years and now own around 300ha's. They produce a variety of fruit and nuts including peaches, pears, grapes, almonds and something called kaki which was not in season so we couldn't see it but was said to be from South America and a bit like a tomato. But their speciality was olives and a few years ago they invested in a state of the art cold pressing plant on the farm.

They are clearly well connected because when it was ready to operate the King came and declared it open. Consistent with that image they are producing only for the top of the market selling Extra Virgin oil under the brand name Nafisa at enhanced prices both inside Morocco and for export.

This level of quality, we were told, starts on the tree. The olives must be juicy and fat to yield the best oil. And every tree on the farm was trickle irrigated and fertigated from one of the seven wells and three reservoirs on the property.

The olives are shaken from the trees when fit and collected mechanically before being transported to the press. The best oil comes from olives that are fresh picked and processed within a few hours. Two different types of oil are produced on the farm - one that is sweet and fruity and said to taste of artichokes, and another that is more intense with overtones of hazelnuts and cinnamon. The oils are bottled in classy looking containers with attractive labels and the FW party were impressed by the presentation. Indeed several of us bought some to use at home.

It was an excellent example of how Morocco is securing a place in the international food market.

A couple of days later we visited another olive press nearer Fes. Here too the owners were claiming to produce Extra Virgin oil from their own trees. The plant was financed by a consortium of Moroccan and British investment and managed by one of the Moroccan investors on site.

He had long since pressed all their own oil and it was stored in stainless steel vats awaiting bottling. He confirmed that it had all been processed within twelve hours of the olives being picked. But the plant was still running processing bags of olives brought in by local small farmers on a contract basis.

The manager told us that some of these olives had been stored in hessian sacks for several weeks. He admitted that the oil they produced would be of poor quality. But most of it would be consumed by the small farmers who had grown it and who waited at the end of the pressing line to collect the produce of their own olives in five gallon drums. They traditionally stored their crop until they had time to get it processed.

Quality, as we in the developed world define it, was apparently unimportant to the small farmers. It was one of the biggest frustrations for the Chamber of Agriculture officials who had taken us to the plant. But at least it was earning a bit of extra income for the owners of the plant.

One of the best examples of the way foreign investment is helping to expand food production and export earnings for Morocco was a specialist blueberry farm not too far from the country's capital, Rabat.

A consortium of investors from Britain, Israel and Australia have joined together to initiate the farm - the British interest being represented by Total Worldfresh based at Tolworth in Surrey.

At present the farm runs to 38ha, all of it covered with plastic greenhouses, inside which seven varieties of blueberries are grown. The biggest customers are M&S and Tesco's and the total produced in the region of 250t per year.

All the labour, apart from management, and there are about 200 employees, comes from local villages and the ladies are clearly pleased with the earning opportunities the farm provides. They are given training in selection, picking, grading and packing. When we were there this was being supervised by an Australian.

The pack house is also used by a group of local stawberry growers who supply to the same customers and they were packing some magnificent fruit while we were there.

Investments of this kind attract generous government grants to help fund such things as infrastructure, irrigation and even seed in some cases. In addition they are allowed to trade for a minimum of three years tax free.

The investors in the blueberry farm are clearly happy with all this because after only three years in place they have tentative plans to expand their soft fruit operations in Morocco to 400ha's.

Wouldn't it be nice if the British government were as enthusiastic to increase food production in the UK? 

I have two grandsons aged 9 and almost 7. Most of the time they are loveable and sweet. But like all boys occasionally they go looking for mischief.

The other day was one of those occasions. My son was sitting at his desk in his office typing onto his computer when the pair of them burst in looking for trouble. He keeps a couple of trilby hats hung up behind the door in case of rain. The eldest grandson twigged these, grabbed one for himself and one for his little brother and they both put them on.

My son, who is their uncle, looked up from his keyboard and saw the two of them wearing his hats. "What are you two doing in my office",he asked.

To which Angus, the oldest, held up his finger to his mouth and whispered "Shhh - don't say a word. We're under cover."

Well, I thought it was funny.

I have referred in passing in other postings to Morocco's Green Plan - or Maroc Vert. It was introduced three years ago and is being enthusiastically persued by all the institutions of agriculture in the country.

It's being promoted as a domestic response to Morocco's need to import much of its food and the fact that 80% of the county's land area is arid or desert. But, of course, it is also a response to the developing world food crisis and an attempt to improve food security.

One of the best examples of this witnessed by the FW Farm Study Tour was at the city of Fes. The Chamber of Agriculture there was highly organised and its officials were only too happy to share with us what they are doing.

Crops grown in the region around the city include cereals and legumes as well as olives, top fruit, vegetables and capers. But only one seventh of the land is irrigated and this limits potential to increase yields and efficiency - which are among the objectives of the plan.

The Chamber officials told us that the average yield of wheat in the area was just 2t/ha but that the best farmers who used fertilisers and crop protection chemicals achieved 8t/ha. Predictably their ambition was to raise the average and they hoped it could be achieved by culture change - as well as by the intorduction of more irrigation from the state funded reservoirs built virtually every year.

Clearly the officials were pre-occupied by the problems they were having in changing the culture of small farmers who were resisting change. They laid on a magnificent reception for our party and questioned us on how we would tackle the problem. Maybe they thought we must have faced similar difficulties after the 2nd World War. We put forward a few suggestions and promised to think further on what might work in this very different country.

They certainly deserve to succeed given their determination and enthusiasm. 

One of the most surprising things the FW party saw in Morocco was a traditional cattle ranch. There in the rolling hills of the Atlas mountains was a 25,000 acre ranch running the best looking beef cattle we saw during the entire tour.

It had been set up in 1970 by an American as a demonstration unit for Moroccans to follow. The original owner had chosen three breeds from which to create a suitable hybrid for the conditions. Santa Getrudis from Mexico; Brahman from India and Beef Shorthorn from Britain. The hybrid, which has long since stabilised into a distinct breed that needs no further crossing is a bit like a South Devon in colour and shape but with a small hump on the shoulder that obviously came from the hot weather breeds.

The farm carried about 3,600 head of cattle including the mother cows, 150 bulls and the calves from two previous breeding seasons that were kept in a beef lot similar to those found in the US.

They were slow maturing, typically taking three years to reach slaughter condition but they lived almost exclusively on grass and silage with no concentrate. And the land was cheap so the economics were probably OK.

The ranch is now owned by a banker based in London, we were told. Yet more surprising evidence of the links between Morocco and Britain. But sadly Moroccan farmers have not copied the American example. Most other beef  cattle we saw on our travels looked like the sort of animal suitable for burgers. These ranch cattle were the only ones that looked capable of producing juicy steaks.

As Emily Padfields posting today makes clear, the farmers of Denmark feel the same way about their government as many of us feel about ours. Four hundred of them drove their tractors into Copenhagen the other day to protest about their representation in Brussels and over tightening regulations on water quality. They have had enough and decided to demonstrate their anger to say so.

It makes the forthcoming ten day Farmers Weekly Study Tour of that country, starting on May 16th, even more timely. We shall be visiting and talking to large and small farmers and politicians across the three main Islands and hearing their views on current problems.

We shall visit one of only two bacon factories left in Denmark; looking round an Arla Dairy; inspecting a bio energy plant; walking round a fruit farm and pack house and visiting the headquarters of all the main institutions of agricuture who operate out of one building in the middle of Copenhagen, and much more.

Before we leave we will go to the birth place of Hans Christian Andersen, tour a couple of magnificent traditional estates with castles as well as superb management and have dinner in the famous Tivoli gardens. Altogether a well rounded tour that will be enjoyable as well as instructive.

There are a handful of places left, so if you would like to join us please contact Jill Lewis at Field Farm Tours without delay. jill@fieldfarmtours.co.uk 

When I was a boy we had a saying on the farm that March dust was worth a guinea an ounce. In other words if the land was dry enough during the month to get all the crops drilled yields should be pretty secure and the farm should be OK for the rest of the year.

Well, there's been almost too much dust this time. There were clouds of it when we were drilling the harvest peas the other day and although I think we managed to plant the seeds into what moisture was there under the surface and rolled them in straight behind the drill I am still concerned about the possibility of a droughty spring. We had one last year and remember what that did to grain yields, hay prices and the like

I've had this premonition about another dry one all month. Indeed I mentioned it a few weeks ago on my page in FW and there's been no rain since to suggest I was wrong. March came in like a lamb and looks like going out like one too. I'd almost rather it went out like a lion, like the other old saying suggests. It only goes to show how unreliable those old saws are. Unless, of course, we get a good wetting before the end of next week.