I am driving to the windswept town of Essaouira on the Atlantic coast, when the driver points to the short, spiky, gnarled trees that dot the yellow hills along the highway. I watch in disbelief, as goats climb the straggly branches and nibble on the nuts, the source of Morocco’s liquid gold. For Argan oil is to Morocco what olive oil is to Italy. Driver Haneef tells me the goats were once part of the production process — eating the fruit and leaving behind clean kernels in the dung!

Native to the deserts, Argan trees have deep roots to survive in harsh conditions, and are resistant to strong winds. UNESCO listed Argan groves in the southern reaches of Morocco as a biosphere reserve in 1998. A tag that stands the trees in good stead in these restive, modern times, perhaps, for it takes them at least 50 years to reach fruiting maturity. Starting with the early Phoenicians, Argan oil has been used in Berber folk medicine for centuries. The cosmetic and food industries, however, have only woken up to its potential as an anti-ageing wonder and super-food in the last decade.

In a low-ceilinged room at a women’s co-operative in the Ouiraka Valley outside Marrakesh, Berber women of all ages sit cross-legged on colourful rugs and extract this wonder oil. It’s a time- and labour-intensive industry, where everything is done by hand. On an average, I’m told, 20 working hours are spent for every litre produced. I watch a few elderly women crack the hard shell of the nut with sharp pieces of rock to release the soft kernel inside, while others grind them into a paste that looks like gooey peanut butter, even as another set of hands squeeze the oil out — it’s an assembly line production. Also, as with many traditional products, even the waste is put to good use. The residue from the kernels after oil extraction — a thick, chocolate coloured paste called amlou — is sweetened and served as a dip for bread at breakfast and used to make soaps, creams and shampoos. The oil too has more than one use — in cooking, stirred into couscous and drizzled over salads, and now, in the global cosmetic industry, prized for its high Vitamin E content.

But its most valuable by-product, perhaps, is empowerment. Much of the Argan oil in the country is made in co-operatives by women who work for half a day to support their families and ensure a good education for their children. Like the hardy trees that have for centuries prevented the Sahara desert from expanding, oil-making has emancipated local women and kept the male-dominated Berber society in check.

( Kalpana Sunder is a Chennai-based writer)

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