Farmers at Azilal use horses and donkeys to help thresh barley, a major food crop grown in Morocco. In 1986, delegates of 26 member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) at the eighteenth Regional Conference for the Near East, requested closer collaboration with FAO in programmes to increase cereal production, and that FAO strengthen its cooperation with national and regional institutions in land and water development and in field crop production. - - General: General.