Survey for the assessment of the economic value of insect pollination in Morocco

Published on: December 17, 2019, Submitted by Soukaina Anougmar on: December 13, 2019

Have a little insight in my 3 months travel in Morocco to do 1000 interviews assessing how much Moroccan consumers and farmers would be willing to pay for the conservation of pollinators. Pollination is a very important ecosystem service for the well-being of farmers and consumers in Morocco. However, pollinators are facing multiple threats that make them fall in abundance and diversity. Use of agro-chemicals, monocultures, loss of field edges, urbanization and pollution threaten pollinators. Climate change increasingly causes additional risks by disrupting the timely match of plants and pollinators. Hence, pollinators need to be protected. An economic assessment can convince farmers, consumers and policymakers to take action for protection.

Soukaina Anougmar explaining to a farmer from Draa-Tafilalet the structure of the questionnaire used for the survey

Pollination is a mandatory input in agriculture, 75% of the most important crops for direct human consumption depend on pollinators (wild and domestic).Moreover, when pollination is provided correctly to these crops, the agricultural output can be better in quality and quantity. Therefore, pollinators can provide higher income for farmers and better food security for consumers.Pollination is also very important for biodiversity conservation and pollinator diversity can serve as a biodiversity indicator.

However, lately, pollinators have been under stress mainly because people's lack of awareness which lead to very endangering behaviors for pollinators and their habitats.Thus, we have decided to conduct an economic valuation of insect pollination in order to provide decision-makers with analytical information to support the protection of pollinators in Morocco.

So, how to assess the economic value of a service provided for free by nature?

In one of my trips to the desert to meet with nomads in Laayoun-Sakia-Lhamra, I was lost for 12 hours. Two of my tires broke while I was trying to find my way back and this photo was taken when I got back to the city (Boujdour) at the end of the day.

First, I used the bioeconomic approach. It is based on the assumption, that the economic impact of pollination on the agricultural output is measurable through the use of dependency ratios. These ratios quantify the impact of a lack of insect pollinators on the value of crop production. To get the value of crop production we used the FAO database for the quantity of crops produced and their producer prices. However, this approach only measures the value of insect pollination for crop production for human consumption.

To capture more values (benefits) of insect pollination, e.g. for forage, some textile fibers, wildlife and habitats, beautiful landscapes etc. I opted for an alternative approach, the choice Modelling (CM). With this approach, I assessed how much Moroccan consumers and farmers would be ready to pay to sustain pollination services. The CM approach is very new and challenging and was very hard to adopt in the context of Morocco.

I did the survey with a total of 1000 people in 5 regions of Morocco:Tanger-Tétouan-Elhouceima, Fès-Meknès, Casablanca-Settat, Draa-Tafilalet, Laayoun-Sakia-Hamra. Those regions have different types of climate, geography and demography.

In each region, I conducted the survey with 100 consumers and 100 farmers, which makes in total, 500 farmers and 500 consumers. I interviewed people in a lot different locations such us local markets, people’s houses, streets, supermarkets, public administrations, waiting rooms, restaurants and the execution took almost 3 months. Currently I evaluate all these data for my PhD.

Acknowledgement

This survey is done as part of a PhD thesis supervised by both ICARDA and Supagro-Montpellier. This PhD funded by the Federal German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) through the International Climate Initiative (IKI)