Morocco - The World’s Biggest Supplier of Cannabis
Cannabis output (including marijuana, hash, and hash oil) continues to rise in Morocco and production has been climbing since the 1980s. In 2003, the Moroccan government began investigating the state of the drugs business and the resulting report suggests that 134,000 hectares of land are dedicated to cannabis. Former interior minister Driss Basri used to estimate the value of the drugs market in Morocco is at about $20 billion, but analysts say that number is not necessarily accurate.
According to the Canabis Cultivation Survey, a research effort conducted jointly by the Moroccan government and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), cannabis cultivation in Morocco is concentrated in the five provinces of the northern region along the mountainous chain of the Rif. One province alone- Chefchaouen -amounts to 50% of cultivation and 43% of potential production of raw cannabis, followed by Taounate (19%), Al Hoceima (17%) and the provinces of Larache and Tetouan.
The surface used for the purpose of cannabis cultivation in Morocco is estimated at 14,000 square kilometers, accounting for 1.5% of the arable land. The potential output for raw cannabis is estimated at 3,080 tons per year plus another 47,000 tons of cannabis herbs. The report indicates that a strong 75% of the hamlets in the northern provinces produce cannabis and the authors extrapolates that nearly 100,000 farmers have cannabis plantations. They represent the equivalent of 6.5% of the farming community in Morocco. Alarmingly, a total of 800,000 people earn a living from growing and trading this crop. This means that 2.7% of the population is in the cannabis business.
However, a special census conducted in 1994 indicated that 1.65 million people were living from Cannabis. The decline of the population involved in this business, if it were the case, while production is up, could be explained by improvement in production techniques and increasing yields. Less people are required to produce more in an effort to gain added productivity. This productivity increase is by far the best in the whole agricultural sector in Morocco.
The report calculates that the revenue per household of the farmers involved is MAD 20,900 on average per year. This is half of what these households reported earning each year, with the remaining income generated from legal farming activity.
