Introduction

The Moroccans first began work with medic in 1981 on a World Bank funded project in the Fes—Karria—Tissa region, but attempts to employ Australian farmers and technical experts for it were not successful. The project went ahead independently and reports indicate that the medic grows well and has substantially increased the amount of feed on offer as grazing. However, the region has a relatively high average rainfall and is fertile, hilly country and farmers are able to grow a wide range of crops. For this reason it is considered by many that these conditions are not conducive to the adoption of a simple dryland medic/cereal rotation (personal communications). There was also a small applied research project operated by the German aid agency GTZ and the Moroccan INRA to carry out small-plot trials in conjunction with commercial field tests on selected livestock farms.

In 1985, as a result of a visit to Australia by a group of Moroccan technicians to see the system in operation a large scale farm development project, ‘Operation ley farming’, was begun. The purpose was to improve the productivity of grazed fallow, improve soil fertility and control soil erosion, and farms where fallow was used and livestock available were selected throughout the dry cereal zone from south of Casablanca to Safi and Marrakesh. The ministry took advice from GTZ and invested in medic seed and the employment of two expert medic farmers to assist in the establishment phase.