Renegotiating the Rural Social Contract? Environmental Change and Social Inequalities in Morocco’s Olive Sector

This article links the concept of the social contract with political ecology approaches to understand the bidirectional relationships between a rural social contract and environmental change. Focusing on the olive sector in the Saïss Plain of the Fès-Meknès region, it investigates how formal or informal agreements between different social groups and the state govern access to natural resources, the extent to which the state protects rural populations from the social and ecological impacts associated with it, and how these dynamics prompt a renegotiation of the rural social contract. Drawing on a comprehensive literature review and semi-structured interviews with diverse stakeholders in the olive sector, the study finds that the uneven provision of access to resources benefits a (new) rural elite, while environmental impacts disproportionally affect smallholders. Their limited opportunities for political participation, however, constrain meaningful renegotiation of a contract that continues to prioritize agricultural productivity over ecological sustainability.