Jawahir durum wheat becomes Morocco’s new hope

2024-25 agricultural season in the southern African country is once again proving to be very dry. This threatens Morocco’s cereal production, including durum wheat, which is vital for food security. Durum wheat, used to make couscous, bread and pasta, is of great importance in Morocco, as it is around the world. In North Africa, people consume durum wheat products daily to get essential calories and protein. The dry climate is nothing new for Morocco’s wheat farmers, who have managed to produce the grain with little water for centuries. However, record droughts over the past decade have left farmers struggling to make a living. Where golden harvests once dominated, brown, drought-stricken fields now dominate. The Jawahir durum wheat variety, which means “precious stone” in Arabic, was bred using genes from Iraqi Triticum araraticum, a wild ancestor of durum wheat that was stored in the gene bank of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). ...