Within the framework of the fertiledatepalm project and with the aim to establish an exchange platform for stakeholders involved in the sector of date palm cultivation and production, the Team of National School of Agriculture (ENA) in Meknes (R. Bouamri, L. Aziz, A. Abidar, F. Rachidi and M. Fagroud) established three Innovation platforms (IPs) in date palm grove of Tafilalet. On 8th March 2017, the official launching of the IPs became effective after final agreements between all partners have been signed. Partners involved are local farmers of the region of Tafilalet, Fimadattes (The Moroccan Interprofessional Federation of Dates), ORMVAT (Regional Office of Agricultural Development of Tafilalet), ANDZOA (National Agency for the Development of Oases and Argan), CRA Drâa-Tafilalet (Regional Chamber of Agriculture of Drâa-Tafilalet), ONCA (National Office of the Agricultural Council) and ONSSA (National Office for Health Security of Food Products), the Economic Interest Group (GIE) Difat Ziz in Erfoud, GIE Ghriss-Ferkla-Amagha in Tinjdad and the Study and Development centre of desert and oasis territories - Jorf.

On one hand, the IPs seek at targeting aims and problems of the stakeholders and to align them with the research process. On the other hand the IPs build the ground to evaluate new approaches and innovative technologies developed by the research groups and to test their acceptability and applicability in the field.

Besides finalizing and signing the agreements, first field trips were conducted to select potential sites for later field evaluations. First activities are currently planned and conducted about which we will  report later.