Rabat – Morocco is bidding to secure new livestock supplies to meet local demand amid significant drought and water challenges.
Australian news outlet ABC said on Monday that the North African country has sent a request to secure livestock supplies from Australia.
Quoting the country’s agriculture department, ABC said Australia “received a request from Morocco to initiate negotiations for importation of livestock from Australia, including proposed conditions for trade.”
The request comes as challenges related to drought have affected Morocco’s trade cooperation with some of its traditional suppliers from the Middle East and Africa.
According to ABC, Rural Export and Trading WA managing director Murray Frangs acknowledged that the government is interested in such a cooperation with Morocco.
However, he showed little enthusiasm towards short-term cooperation with the country.
“We outlined there are a number of factors that we’d have to overcome to get there and didn’t see that there would be any opportunity in the shorter to medium-term to address that,” Frangs said, adding that “in the unlikely situation that this had a longer-term opportunity, it might be worth looking at — but at this stage it doesn’t appear to be.”
To tackle local demand, Morocco’s government has turned to different markets to import livestock amid a drought affecting red meat production and cereal input.
Brazil and Uruguay were some of the markets that supplied Morocco’s local demand to stabilize red meat prices.
The prices of red meat and other food supplies have been burdening citizens who are blaming the government for inaction to address the crisis and alleviate pressure on Moroccans’ purchasing power.
Source : MoroccoWorldNews
