On December 26 and 27, the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University Sultan Moulay Slimane in Béni Mellal, Morocco organized a national biotechnology workshop under the topic "Biotechnology for a sustainable agriculture".

The objectives of this event aimed at presenting current scientific research activities in the field of microbial and plant biotechnology and their applications and implementations in Morocco, to promote research and development in the field of biotechnology to preserve the region of Beni Mellal-Khénifra, to create knowledge exchange between scientists and industry and to establish partnerships with other networks, associations and organisations. During these two days the participants addressed and discussed the following two topics: 1) microbial biotechnology including plant-microbe interactions, biofertilizers, biostimulatnts, symbiotic interactions and others; 2) plant biotechnology with the focus on micropropagation and transgenesis, seed production, diversity and characterisation of genetic resources, molecular marker technologies and programs of planting vitro plants in Morocco.

On the second day, Prof. Abdelilah Meddich represented the fertiledatepalm project with his talk entitled "Application of organic biofertilizer technology to improve the growth of date palm growth and underlying crops".