Meet the Moroccan women making Argan oil for the beauty industry

TAROUDANT, Morocco, June 15 (Reuters) – In the arid mountains of southern Morocco, community women of all ages harvest argan oil, a natural products they have extensive utilized in cooking but which has grow to be hugely prized by the global magnificence sector as an anti-growing older pores and skin remedy and restorative for hair.

Most argan oil is manufactured by neighborhood cooperatives of Amazigh-talking Berber gals all over the cities of Agadir, Essaouira and Taroudant where the argan tree, which bears small eco-friendly fruit resembling an olive, is widespread.

For centuries the oil, amid the most expensive in the world, has been extracted by drying argan fruit in the sun, peeling and mashing the fruit then crushing and grinding the kernel with stones.

The oil was historically made use of as a flavouring and a savoury dip for bread. As an component it is nonetheless common in Morocco and now also exported for foods.

Its use as a natural beauty products has created a surge in demand for the oil by global cosmetics companies, having said that. It also implies that area teams are investing in additional interesting packaging. The oil now charges around $30-50 a litre regionally, but can promote on the global market in smaller sized significant-conclusion bottles for up to $250 a litre.

In the Tiout oasis near Taroudant (600km south of Rabat), the Taitmatine cooperative employs 100 girls to develop argan oil, giving them a income, no cost childcare, overall health insurance coverage and literacy courses.

Amazigh females sit alongside one another as they crush argan nuts to extract the kernels, at Women’s Agricultural Cooperative Taitmatine, in Tiout, in close proximity to Taroudant, Morocco June 10, 2021. Photo taken June 10, 2021. REUTERS/Abdelhak Balhaki

The cooperative, whose identify in Amazigh suggests “sisters”, was set up in 2002.

While new machines they use to help system the fruit have aided speed up the perform, the females nevertheless have to remove the hard shell of the kernels by hand by pounding it with a stone, ahead of the interior kernel can be pressed by a device to extract the oil.

“It will take up to 3 days of grinding for each and every lady to get a single litre of Argan oil,” explained Mina Ait Taleb, head of the Taitmatin cooperative.

“We do the job in this article but we also have exciting and sing with each other,” explained Zahra Haqqi speaking in a home exactly where dozens of women had been grinding outer argan kernels using stones.

Haqi reported the position experienced aided her earn a normal cash flow.

($1 = .7119 lbs)

Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi and Abdelhak Belhaki, Editing by Angus McDowall and Alexandra Hudson

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