Moroccan professor helps set up women's argan oil co-operatives

21/11/2006

Moroccan argan tree expert Dr Zoubida Charrouf feels the argan tree is a vital Moroccan resource with many uses. She is trying to combat deforestation of the argan through setting up women's co-operatives to produce oil and raise international recognition of the product.

By Farah Kinani for Magharebia in Washington – 21/11/06

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Dr Zoubida Charrouf, a professor at Rabat's Mohamed V University, is trying to help save Morocco's argan tree by increasing recognition of its oil and setting up women's co-operatives to plant more trees and cultivate oil.

She first became interested in the argan tree while in France. She explains, "At the end of the 19th century, a French writer who had studied the argan nut said the tree contained an active principle. Between then and the start of my research, no one had tried to investigate this principle." She became more passionate about the argan as she discovered more molecular substances unique to it.

Charrouf received a doctorate studying argan trees and became one of the first people to campaign to save it. She believes all parts of the tree can be used to provide a source of income or food for those who exploit them.

"As well as an environmental role, the argan tree plays an important socio-economic role," she told Magharebia.

Charrouf spent 15 years setting up the first-ever argan oil processing co-operatives in villages of Tamanar and Tidzi.

She was motivated to "value women's expertise and protect argan oil, which has always been undervalued and sold at roadsides despite its nutritional, pharmaceutical, therapeutic, cosmetic and environmental benefits".

"Women have always produced argan oil. There were jobs for men in the co-operative, but the women had decided to recruit only women because mixing of the sexes is frowned on in these parts of Morocco," she noted.

"When I announced I was planning to set up the first co-operative, the men weren't too happy about their wives going out. When the women began bringing home money, men started coming to me on their wives' behalf," Charrouf recalls.

She currently works with the Moroccan government to support the involvement of women in rural and sustained development.

"An agreement has been signed between the High Commission for Water and Forests and the Targanine co-operatives on argan replanting and developing argan tree cultivation through forest re-spacing," she noted.

Charrouf's other main activity is campaigning for better management of argan products and increased recognition of argan oil.

"I would like to see argan oil given the status of Appellation d'Origine Contrôlé (AOC) … We meet all the requirements for being an AOC … If it can be achieved, only oil produced in the region according to the proper criteria can be called argan. This will contribute to the development of the region and the conservation of the argan forest," she stated.

While some people worry argan oil's growing popularity could lead to overexploitation, Charrouf counters that the experiences of other countries show reforestation rises with product demand.

"It's the financial value of a tree that motivates people to replant it … Our national output is 4,000 tonnes per year. We'd need 400 co-operatives to produce this amount, and we're not there yet," she pointed out.

In Morocco the argan is known as the "tree of life" because of its many beneficial properties. The argan forest provides a living for around 3 million people, including 2.2 million in rural areas.

"It provides stability for the rural population and is thus slowing down the rural exodus," Charrouf explained.

Morocco is witnessing a reduction in the area and density of its argan forest. Since the beginning of last century, its area has been reduced from 1,400,000 hectares to 828,000 hectares. The density has fallen from 100 trees to 30 trees per hectare, with Charrouf estimating that 600 hectares are lost every year.