Who It Helps

Argan tree is one of the rarest found trees in the world. It is mainly found in southwestern Morocco where primitive Berber tribes live. It is also one of the oldest trees in the world dating back to millions of years. Argan tree has gained importance due to the unique and precious Argan oil extracted from the hard nuts of the fruit of Argan tree. Argan oil has appeared on the international scene as the most useful and multipurpose cosmetic product in the world. It has both culinary and cosmetic uses. But it is in the cosmetic arena where Argan oil has attracted most of the attention.

    Argan oil production has traditionally been the domain of Berber women who used it for demestic purposes like as food and as a beauty tool. But the increasing popularity of Argan oil attracted the European cosmetic producers as well as culinary concerns. This increasing interest and demand mechanized the production of Argan oil. Local Moroccan, Swiss and French entrepreneurs jumped into the production arena in search of large profits by exporting this useful oil to western markets. Original producers of Argan oil were reduced to be mere seed suppliers by these large companies. Still these mechanical Argan oil producing companies advertised their product to be hand-made by Berber women although women had nothing to do with their production. In reaction to this exploitation of Berber women by these companies, UNESCO recognized Argan tree area as Biosphere Reserve in 1998 on the joint initiative of German Government Development Agency (GTZ) and Moroccan authorities.

    Taking the lead from this joint initiative, rural Berber women sought to set up Women Cooperatives for the production and marketing of Argan oil. Some of these Women Cooperatives opted for the mechanical production path with the help of some NGOs, while others remained committed to hand-made way of producing Argan oil. Those committed to the traditional method of producing Argan oil faced economic problems due to the higher cost of production by hand. To address this problem five Cooperatives joined hands to form a Union of Women’s Cooperatives of Arganeraie (UCFA) in 1999 with due help from GTZ. The situation however did not improve because of the lack of marketing and presence of private competitors. Two confirmed benefits of hand-made Argan oil were brought forth by a Moroccan engineer. First, that only best seeds are used for oil production because UCFA supervised the whole process from harvest to oil production. Second, the seeds are immediately processed after being separated from nuts, thus eliminating the problem of oxidization of exposed seeds. Superiority of hand production over industrialists in these two areas justifies the higher price of hand-made Argan oil.

Goals and Objectives

    The founding goal of Women Cooperatives is the preservation and protection of fast vanishing Argan forest. Three objectives are defined in pursue of this goal.

To apprise local people of the utmost significance of Argan tree and problems related to its deforestation.

To systematically organize the traditional production of Argan oil.

To explore possibilities of commercialization of Argan oil products.