Morocco is a drought-prone, climate-constrained country that has made significant investments in agriculture with the goal of enhancing the adoption of higher-value cropping systems for economic…

This federal contract award for $325,261.38 was granted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the Regents of the University of Minnesota, a non-profit educational institution and 1862 Land Grant College, to conduct research on using remotely-sensed indicators to develop indexed insurance and drought relief programs to support Moroccan farmers in adopting higher-value cropping systems. The project aims to 1) detect the extent of olive cropping systems and evaluate the conversion from cereal crops, 2) evaluate socioeconomic conditions and risk management strategies in two Moroccan olive producing regions, and 3) integrate socioeconomic and environmental data to assess the use of remotely-sensed triggers for farmer losses due to adverse conditions. This research aligns with NASA's Land-Cover and Land-Use Change (LCLUC) program priorities and will help inform land use policy in Morocco and the broader Mediterranean region. The contract has no set-aside designation and runs through May 13, 2025.

Morocco is a drought-prone, climate-constrained country that has made significant investments in agriculture with the goal of enhancing the adoption of higher-value cropping systems for economic development. The moroccan government currently offers a multi-peril insurance program for cereal crops but has not yet developed a product that could help absorb the risks impeding the adoption of such higher value, but riskier, cropping systems. Within this context, two early-career scientists with specialties in spatial and economic analysis, respectively, will lead a project to evaluate the possibility of using remotely-sensed indicators to effectively shield farmers from risks of adopting higher value crops via their use in an indexed insurance and/or drought relief program. Achieving this overarching objective will involve three main tasks: 1. Detecting the extent of olive cropping systems and evaluating the degree of conversion from cereal crops to olives. 2. Evaluating socioeconomic conditions and risk management strategies in two study areas of morocco. This step will first involve expert elicitation to ground the analysis in the realities and perceived risks in the supply chain, and will be followed by a series of stratified surveys among agricultural producers in two olive producing regions of morocco whose agro-climatic conditions vary. 3. Integrating data on socioeconomic conditions with remotely sensed environmental changes to evaluate the correspondence of a remotely-sensed trigger of farmer losses due to adverse conditions such as drought. Perennial crops are emblematic of the possibility to adopt higher value cropping systems that are otherwise too risky for many farmers to take on without insurance. Even if they are drought-resistant, perennials are much more costly than many annual crops and involve a long period before they have economically-harvestable fruits. Even once producing, weather fluctuation remains a risk: recent reports suggest moroccan olive farmers perceived yield declines on the order of 36-64% less than expected in recent dry years. Drought can therefore amplify risk exposure for farmers when the farmers face higher absolute losses relative to their potential. Despite the importance of perennials, most studies evaluating indexed products for agriculture focus on annual cropping systems or broad indicators of drought stress rather than the particulars of high value, long-term investments. Three senior collaborators from UC davis, UMN, and the national school of agriculture in meknes, morocco, with significant on-the ground experience and technical expertise in agricultural economics and agronomy will advise the project to ensure alignment with the realities of morocco s environment and policy context. Our interdisciplinary approach to integrating social and environmental processes as well as disaggregating impacts across space aligns with the lcluc research priorities to understand the sustainability, vulnerability, and resilience of human land use. Furthermore, our results will be made public to help advance land change science as well as inform land use policy in morocco, the mediterranean regional information network (medrin), more broadly -- areas that have been evaluated as highly vulnerable to future climate change.