Tadla-Azilal
Spanned Tadla irrigated plains to High Atlas peaks (4,000m). Incompatible systems: intensive agriculture vs. mountain pastoralism. 2015: merged into Béni Mellal-Khénifra, gradient persists.
Tadla-Azilal occupied the ecological transition between the fertile Tadla plains (fed by Oum Er-Rbia River) and the High Atlas mountains rising to over 4,000 meters at Jbel Azourki. One region contained both intensive irrigated agriculture and Berber mountain villages practicing terrace farming and transhumant pastoralism—systems operating on entirely different resource logics.
The Tadla irrigation scheme, developed like Gharb and Doukkala in the mid-20th century, converted 100,000 hectares to year-round cultivation. Sugar beets, cereals, and olives replaced seasonal grazing. Meanwhile, in the High Atlas section, villages like those in the Ait Bouguemez valley maintained centuries-old patterns: summer pastures at high elevation, winter descent to lower valleys, minimal cash economy. The administrative boundary forced these incompatible systems into one governance unit.
The 2015 regionalization merged Tadla-Azilal with Khenifra province to form Béni Mellal-Khénifra, but the underlying gradient persists. The Tadla plains export agricultural surplus; the Atlas mountains export labor (young men working in coastal cities, sending remittances home). Both flow outward. The region's economy mirrors its topography: productive lowlands, subsistence highlands, with value concentrating at lower elevations.
Through 2026, this gradient intensifies. Climate change reduces Atlas snowpack, shrinking water available for both irrigation and mountain springs. Young Atlas residents increasingly leave permanently rather than practicing traditional transhumance. The plains industrialize further; the mountains depopulate. The ecological boundary sharpens into an economic divide.