REVIEW article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agroecology and Ecosystem Services
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1662153
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Approaches in Agroecology and Ecosystem Services for Transformative Sustainable Food SystemsView all 3 articles
Agroecological soil management in North Africa: Practices, challenges, and prospects for sustainable transition
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universite Moulay Ismail Faculte des Sciences, Meknes, Morocco
- 2Centre Regional de la Recherche Agronomique de Meknes, Meknes, Morocco
- 3Universite Sultan Moulay Slimane, Beni-Mellal, Morocco
- 4Universite de Lorraine, Nancy, France
- 5Centre Régional de la recherche Agronomique de Tadla Maroc, Beni Mellal, Morocco
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North Africa faces multiple environmental challenges, including soil degradation, climate change, desertification, and water scarcity. In this context, agroecology offers a sustainable and promising approach to land management by enhancing the resilience of agricultural systems and preserving natural resources and biodiversity. This review synthesizes the current research on resilient agroecological practices implemented across North African countries and evaluates their benefits, limitations, and potential for local adaptation. Key practices include the use of organic amendments, composting, biochar application, agroforestry, direct seeding, mulching, crop diversification and cover cropping. Beyond the analysis of these practices, this study proposes a holistic framework that integrates agroecological soil management strategies with emerging technologies, such as remote sensing, smart soil sensors, and digital decision-support platforms. To advance the agroecological transition, reinforcing supportive policies, fostering stakeholder participation, promoting interdisciplinary research, and strengthening capacity-building initiatives are essential. Encouraging collaboration among actors, sharing successful experiences, and developing context-specific solutions will contribute to establishing more resilient, sustainable, and equitable agricultural systems across North Africa.
Keywords: agroecology, Emerging Technologies, North Africa, sustainable land management, Resilient agricultural practices
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Boutagayout, Hamdani, Kouighat, Zayani and Adiba. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Abdellatif Boutagayout, a.boutagayout@edu.umi.ac.ma
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