Various officials have gathered in Agadir to inaugurate a new horticultural “center of excellence” due to a partnership between Morocco and the Netherlands.
Morocco’s Minister of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development, Water and Forests Mohamed Sadiki was joined by Dutch Ambassador Jeroen Roodenburg to celebrate the new center’s opening on Saturday, December 10.
In a press release, the Dutch embassy in Rabat highlighted the “very close cooperation,” between the two kingdoms that had led to the opening of the new center in Agadir. The ceremony marks the official start of the center’s activities, which will focus on knowledge exchange to promote the “sustainable and integrated development of the horticultural sector in Morocco.”
The new center of excellence brings together the Dutch embassy, the ministry of agriculture, and actors from the private sector and Dutch research institutions. They are set to work closely with the Moroccan ministry of agriculture, the Hassan II Agronomic and Veterinary Institute in Rabat, and the Agadir Horticultural Complex.
The Dutch embassy emphasized that the new center and its projects “offer great opportunities to exchange the experiences of the two countries and to strengthen the synergies and complementarities between the production sectors in Morocco and the Netherlands.”
Horticulture, the science of plant cultivation, is at an advanced stage in the Netherlands. Despite its small size (41,543 km²) relative to Morocco (710,850 km²), the north-western European country is the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter, driven by innovation and high-tech agriculture.
SOURCE: Morocco news