Caption: Greenhouses in Dakhla. Photo by Elli Lorz.

Morocco has launched a third tender to lease more than 1,090 hectares of agricultural land in occupied Western Sahara, expanding the area that will be irrigated through the controversial Dakhla seawater desalination project powered by renewable energy from French multinational Engie. 

The Moroccan Agency for Agricultural Development (ADA) announced the new public-private partnership tender on 29 June 2026 (or download). It covers 35 agricultural projects spread across 1,090 hectares of state-owned land in the Bir Anzarane municipality, north of Dakhla (or download), with bids open until the end of August. The land is offered on long-term leases as part of the government's irrigation project based on desalinated seawater.

According to the tender documents, the new plots form part of the wider 5,000-hectare irrigation perimeter created through the Dakhla desalination project. Investors are expected to focus primarily on vegetable production, with horticultural crops required to occupy at least 70-75 percent of the cultivated area.

The announcement marks another step in transforming Engie’s desalination project into commercial agricultural production.

Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) has previously documented how electricity from Engie's wind farm was intended to power the desalination plant that enabled the expansion of industrial agriculture in occupied Western Sahara with an additional 5,000 hectares. Without the desalination project, large-scale cultivation in this arid area would not be possible.

Morocco is now allocating the newly irrigated land to agricultural investors, further integrating occupied Western Sahara into Morocco's export-oriented agricultural economy. The projects will, controversially, incentivise more Moroccans to settle in the territory. 

The timing is noteworthy.

The expansion comes while the European Union is attempting to establish a new framework for trade relations with Morocco following the Court of Justice of the European Union's judgments that EU-Morocco trade agreements cannot apply to Western Sahara without the consent of the Saharawi people.

At the same time, European farmers have repeatedly complained about what they regard as unfair competition from Moroccan fruit and vegetable exports, including produce originating from occupied Western Sahara. Expanding thousands of hectares of irrigated horticulture in the territory will intensify those concerns.

Morocco has now issued three rounds of tenders linked to the desalination project - the first one in 2022, the second round in 2024 - gradually allocating land that until recently could not sustain intensive agriculture. The latest call alone concerns 35 separate projects, ranging from small farms to large aggregated developments, all located in Bir Anzarane in occupied Western Sahara.

The development illustrates how foreign corporate involvement in energy infrastructure is facilitating the long-term economic integration of occupied Western Sahara into Morocco, despite the territory's continued occupation and the repeated opposition of the Saharawi people to the exploitation of their natural resources without their consent.

WSRW has written to Engie on numerous occasions regarding its desalination project in the occupied territory, without obtaining answers to our questions. Find our correspondence here. 

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