Abstract

Agrofood industries provide many jobs in Morocco, but are also the source of much pollution, especially of water courses. An environmental protection law is currently under preparation that will force these industries to treat or reduce the amount of waste they produce. With a view to helping agrofood industries increase their productivity while reducing to a minimum their deleterious effect on the environment, this project will establish a liaison office between the Institut agronomique et vétérinaire (IAV) Hassan II and the agrofood industries, offering information services, technical assistance, consultation, and training. This will be undertaken in collaboration with Centre de recherche industrielle du Québec (CRIQ).

Post-Project Summary

CRIQ organized a visit for the Moroccan project leader to some Canadian organizations similar to the one planned for Morocco. The Institut agronomique et vétérinaire Hassan II (IAV) created a coordination and monitoring team comprising six professors from the institute under the direction of the project leader. The team surveyed the teachers/researchers in the agrifood industries sector of IAV in order to identify their areas of competence and to inform them about the role of the Cellule interface recherche-industrie (CIRI - research-industry liaison unit). CIRI was provided with information equipment and a documentalist and an engineer were hired. The team surveyed 280 of the 1 500 agrifood industries in the country. Only 51 industries completed the questionnaire, 3.4% of the total. According to the survey, the major problems faced by the agrifood industries were in descending order of importance: obtaining a steady supply of raw material of adequate quality; production problems; local distribution (deficient distribution networks); external distribution; and packaging quality. The findings suggested the unexpected necessity of training agrifood industries in Internet use.

CIRI made itself known by means of seminars on various subjects, presentations at international trade fairs, visits to industries and trade fairs, and newspaper and magazine articles. CIRI offered training workshops and seminars on such topics as: Interet; optimizing energy management; heat exchangers; industrial refrigeration; sensory evaluation of food; the American market in agrifood products; export opportunities; situation analysis of industrial farms; the value chain; the Morocco-European Union accord; ISO 9000 certification; and project management. CIRI responded to the needs of agrifood businesses by seeking out information from available sources or other organizations. The requests from organizations varied considerably. However, businesses were loathe to pay for services: of 41 service proposals made by CIRI over the three years of the project, few were accepted.

From its inception, CIRI actively contributed to the research and supervision of third- and fourth-year students from IAV during their internships in the industry. These internships led to jobs in agrifood businesses in some cases. The project facilitated the dissemination of technical information to agrifood industries, and put researchers and businesses in touch with one another. At the end of the project, IAV engaged the team leader of CIRI to continue the service.

Recipient Institution(s)