HIBAPRESS.
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Rural Development, Water and Forests, Ahmed El Bouari, on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, made a field visit to the province of El Jadida, in the Casablanca-Settat region, to assess the progress of the national program for planting cactus resistant to the cochineal insect.
The cactus series is among the priority series within the framework of the Green Generation strategy, due to its prominent economic, social and environmental role, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. The Ministry of Agriculture, in view of the damage caused by the cochineal insect since 2014, has developed a national program to plant resistant cactus that aims to plant 122,000 hectares by 2028 with an investment estimated at 1.4 billion dirhams, in addition to an additional 100,000 hectares currently under study. Thanks to research conducted by the National Institute of Agricultural Research, eight varieties of cactus resistant to the cochineal insect have been developed and more than 16.3 million seedlings of these resistant varieties have been produced and distributed to farmers in various regions of the Kingdom. In the Doukkala region, 1,600 hectares have been programmed for planting, of which 880 hectares have been completed to date.
