Super foods are all the rage, and argan oil has not escaped the trend. It reportedly has numerous health benefits and as such, has a name (and price) to match them. Argan oil is also a popular success story for many NGOs and international development charities in Morocco.
Argan trees are picky. According to Orwa's (et al, 2009) "Agroforestree database", the argan tree very well adapted to Morocco's climate, soils and ecology. To that extent, other regions of the world (Israel and Mexico) have only had some success with growing argan trees.
This mini series focuses on to what extent a particular crop is 'water-suitable'. The argan tree does not get more suitable in climatically dry regions with limited groundwater (Morocco). Argan trees do poorly in waterlogged soils (Orwa et al., 2009). Their deep roots help bind soils, promote infiltration, and provide it with access to deeper water reserves, reducing competition and making great trees to be intercrop with. Finally, they have seen success in halting the occurrence of desertification of the Sahara Desert across Southern Morocco (Orwa et al., 2009).
However, the water-suitability benefits are not the only advantages to argan. Argan, as previously mentioned, has been a success story across a number of NGOs (Lybbert et al., 2010). Argan can be sold for almost $400 per litre, so presumably has a large impact on rural poverty alleviation. However argan oil sales have been relatively insignificant in increasing household budgets, and have only some financial benefit on rural households (le Polain de Waroux & Lambin, 2013). For those who previously would heard goats, more vigilant households have begun preventing herders from using their trees for goats to graze upon, due to the value of the fruit (Lybbert et al., 2010). This has not only impacted herders, but also affected tree health, as goats were non-exploitative grazers. Furthermore, few households have invested back into local argan forests, further impacting the future sustainability of argan forests.
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| It's like an adventure park for goats! (Source) |
The future pressures are also rather significant. The argan tree is a highly tolerant species, which adapts well with little water in a harsh environment. As consumer demand and climate variability increases in the future, so will human and climatic pressures. Zunzunegui (et al., 2010) argues a combination of both pressures will have the largest impact on production. A sustainable approach is therefore needed to reduce human pressures and mitigate against lower yields in the future. Although Zunzunegui's research was limited, the research warrants caution over exploitation.
Argan trees are perfect cash crops for Moroccans. They are endemic species, highly tolerant of the harsh environment, and highly water-suitable for the region. Future climatic impacts may alter the opinion of NGOs as fruit yields decrease and sustainable yields should be. For the short term, they give a rare and hopeful opportunity to alleviate poverty and improve the finances of those in rural Morocco.
Interesting that argan is only successful for Morocco! I've been to Morocco myself and there's also a cultural element to argan as the traditional Berber villages take great pride in making argan oil and other products from the argan tree. A sustainable approach is therefore very important and I think it would be interesting for you to explore so past and also suggested sustainable approaches to rare crops such as argan.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Something that I did not explicitly mention in my blog was the cultural significance, which argan is heavily important. I may look at water sustainable crop measures in the next few blogs - thanks for the suggestion!
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