One century retrospective ond solutions for the future of tomato

The production director of the tomato company Duroc (Delassus Group), Said Ouraich, gave at the first Morocco Tomato conference in Agadir a historic retrospective of the tomato industry and some perspective. “We had to wait until 2012 to establish a full genomic map of the tomato, the great surprise is that tomato counts with 37,000 genes, which is more than the humans around 20,000 genes” said Said. Morocco became in 2018 the 15^th world largest producer of tomato and in 2022 the 4^th exporter of fresh tomato, just one century after the introduction of the variety in the country by the Spaniards.

Migration to the South, IPM and viruses threat

The production of tomato migrated to the Souss valley Eldorado about 40 years ago, when the country engaged on a national agriculture reparcelling. Integrated pest management practices (IPM), intensive farming, bee pollination, insect-proof greenhouses against virus vectors, ISO and GAP certifications, competition, specialty varieties and segmentation were the main challenges and progress of the Morocco tomato industry until 2010.

Specialty varieties the main exports since 2022

Historically producer of round tomato, Morocco started exporting dominantly cherry and cocktail tomato varieties by value since 2022. Around 6,000ha of greenhouse tomato are grown in the Souss valley, from it 2500ha are specialty varieties. Almost half of the tomato cultivation (2,800ha) are made under hydroponic systems, more productive and sustainable. Berries became a “competing” cultivation, due to its profitability. The Souss valley grows today an estimated 2,500ha of berries, 1,400ha of them being hydroponic. Next generation crop monitoring systems are being tested and adopted by larger farmers, in order to tailor the irrigation according to the needs of the plant, evaporation and indoor climate parameters.

Future challenges: new viruses and climate change

A combination of various measures of protection are the recommended approach to new sanitary threat, since no solution is 100% efficient. Resistant or tolerant varieties, bio-stimulants, bio-crop protection solutions and chemical products combined together have been applied against the latest pest like Tuta Absoluta, which started appearing in Morocco in 2020, also against the newest virus T0BRTV since last season. Morocco is proving to be tremendously resilient towards the water scarcity and severe drought, which hits the Sous valley for more than 4 years. Desalinisation plants are being quickly constructed in the country by the government, more and more farmers switch to hydroponic systems, estimated representing 30% of the greenhouses in the Souss valley so far. Said Ouraich also recorded that tomato cultivation is much more water-efficient than berries: 40 to 75 cubic meters of water are needed per kilo of tomato, against 200 to 400m2 per kilo for the berries. According to Said the use of solar energy to heat the greenhouses in winter is one of the future solutions to improve sustainability and productivity.

Delassus Group key numbers

It is a family-owned business group with a legacy of over 75 years of existence and excellence in horticulture. Delassus Group only markets its own production, cultivating over 2800 ha of citrus, grapes flowers, avocados and tomatoes. Its tomato division called Duroc is specialized in snacking tomatoes, with more than 600ha of it cultivated in greenhouses. The group employs a total of 6,500 dedicated, talented and passionate professionals. Within its corporate and social responsibility (CSR) it is a proud founder of the Sanady Foundation, committed to advancing the education of workers’ children.

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