A meeting held in Rabat last Friday could shape the next phase of Morocco’s agricultural research. Lamia Ghouti, director of Morocco’s National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA), welcomed a delegation from the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), the body representing agriculture departments across all fifty US states and four territories. The visit aimed to deepen a partnership that has been building since 2024 and to identify fresh avenues for joint research.
Ashley Randall, Massachusetts Commissioner of Agricultural Resources and the delegation’s spokesperson, said the trip was primarily intended to better understand INRA’s research priorities. Climate change, system resilience, conservation agriculture and soil health emerged as shared concerns, alongside animal genetics.
For INRA, Ghouti outlined two priority areas going forward: conservation agriculture and genomic editing, a technology she said would speed up the development of new plant varieties suited to Morocco’s agro-climatic conditions. A parallel effort targets the genetic improvement of cattle herds, built around the country’s local breeds rather than imported genetics alone.
The cooperation is not starting from scratch. It draws on backing from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), as well as established exchange programs such as Fulbright scholarships and the Borlaug Fellowship. Twenty-five INRA researchers have already taken part, six of whom completed research stints at American universities over the past two years.
Beyond the diplomatic optics, the meeting points to a broader shift: Moroccan agronomic research is increasingly plugged into international networks, relying on sustained partnerships rather than one-off agreements. For a country grappling with water scarcity and an increasingly erratic climate, access to tools like genomic editing and genetics-assisted breeding has become a matter of food security as much as economic competitiveness. Both sides indicated that the strengthened relationship with NASDA should translate, in the coming months, into more structured joint research projects, a sign that the scientific dimension of Morocco-US relations is quietly expanding well beyond the headlines usually reserved for trade and defense.
