In a drive to increase Morocco’s value-added agricultural production, the first of 10 state-of-the art olive farms are expected to be planted in the region of Beni Hellal in September. The olive farms, each with 1,000 hectares of olive trees, will be concentrated in the Haouz, Tensift, Tadla and Meknes regions. With the first harvest expected in 2010, the majority of the oil produced will be for export, given the growing appetite for olive oil products in Europe. Crédit Agricole du Maroc and the Société Générale Asset Management joined forces to launch the olive cultivation program. The investment fund, named Olea Capital, aims to revitalize Morocco’s centuries-old olive oil industry. The project aims to take Morocco’s olive oil production to 30,000 tons per year. The Moroccan government is equally committed to boosting olive oil production. The National Olive Production Plan aims to dramatically increase the scale of the industry. At
