Blitz Bureau
RABAT: King Mohammed VI has asked Moroccans to abstain from performing the Muslim rite of slaughtering sheep during Eid al-Adha this year due to a sharp drop in the country’s herd, BBC reported.
The shortages are blamed on seven years of drought. Herds in Morocco have shrunk by 38 per cent in a decade due to dry pastures, according to official data quoted in the BBC report.
Meat prices are rocketing, and 100,000 sheep are being imported from Australia, it said. Performing the rite “under these difficult circumstances will cause significant harm to large segments of our people, especially those with limited income,” King Mohammed VI said in a speech read by the Minister of Religious Affairs on national television. His father, Hassan II, made the same appeal back in 1966 when Morocco also suffered a long drought.
Explaining the challenge in a recent interview, Morocco’s Agriculture Minister Ahmed Bouari said “the need to secure water for priority sectors, such as driving and industry” meant that agriculture was the worst-hit, “with most irrigation areas subject to strict regulations and water rationing”.
