“It helps the women, it helps the women,” insists the sales assistant as she wraps a bottle of shampoo for a customer in one of the many argan outlets in Essaouira’s atmospheric souk. 

The women are those working in the co-operatives across Morocco that sprung-up as demand for argan oil products has soared.

For centuries argan oil has been used by Berber people for cooking and cosmetics. The traditional method of extracting the oil – by women, by hand – from nuts grown on thorny trees in Morocco’s Sous Valley has been recognised by UNESCO for its cultural value.

Meagre

Argan oil is now found in countless cosmetics that push its health and anti-ageing properties, while the cooking oil is stocked on supermarket shelves worldwide. 

The sector is today dominated by international companies - with argan oil being described by the beauty industry as ‘liquid gold’.

This globalisation is pushing Morocco’s women co-operatives to the margins, and profits gleaned from an industry now worth more than US$700 million rarely find their way back to source.  

“The argan market has become uncontrollable, multinationals have enormous power and small cooperatives cannot compete,” explains Eleonora Jaibi, who founded the fair trade Noura Racconti Cosmeticis company in Italy.

A study in the World Development Perspective Journal in 2020 assessed that all profits in Morocco’s argan oil sector were being made at the top of the value chain, leaving ‘uneven, meagre rewards for women’s skilled manual labour.’

Profit

The biggest global player is the French company, Olvea. Others include ARGANisme, headquartered in the Netherlands and Morocco-based ZineGlob. 

Popular in the lucrative North American market is the Israeli company MoroccanOil, known (controversially since the war in Gaza) for its sponsorship of the Eurovision Song Contest. 

“Everyone wants their share of the value chain and there is less and less room for women,” says Jamila Idbourous, President of the Union of Women's Cooperatives for Argan Oil Production.

It is not only the influx of corporate interests that are leading to dwindling returns for Morocco’s artisanal producers. Climate change has impacted the harvest and quality of fruit, and even the hardiest of trees are struggling with drought. 

Covid has played a part, too. When Morocco emerged from lockdown in 2022 a kilo of argan fruit had increased in price from two to 12 dirhams, a big hit to the co-operatives profit margins. Many were forced to close or drastically reduce operations. 

Co-operative

One casualty was Sidi Yassine, a family-owned company that had been going since 2003. They exported their products mainly to Europe, but CEO Ulysse Müller says the decline in fruit production caused by the drought, coupled with increasing demands from some buyers meant “it cost us more to work than to close.”

“We only earn when we work,” says Zoya* who works for another co-operative, a short drive from Essaouira. She explains that members have no social security and are not reimbursed for health costs. 

She has received part of the profit share just three times, the most recent in 2014, and each time a smaller sum. There are some months she doesn’t get paid at all, “but I continue to work because I want to keep the co-operative alive.”

Today, many co-operatives rely on visits from foreign tourists. You don’t have to drive far in the Sous Valley before seeing the signs welcoming drivers to visit one of them. The argan produced here is generally sold locally and all have small shops or sales rooms. A lucky few are stop-offs on the tourist trail.

In Cooperative Marjana the staff mobilise as a couple of minivans pull up outside. The first queue forms by the new toilet block – this co-operative knows its market. 

State-of-the-art

The tourists are then shown the room where the women are crushing the nuts. Next it is the sales room for tea, bread and amlou (a local spread made of argan oil, almonds and honey) and a talk about argan’s myriad health benefits. 

The wallets come out and for a few minutes the cash register rings up sales. Then the tourists pile back onto the minivans and head-off.

Fatiha, the co-operative's manager, puts their success down to their reputation, location and the quality of the oil, “that makes the difference compared to other co-operatives that are struggling. This is reflected in the payment and profit share for the women.”

A version of this scene appears in most of the big companies’ marketing material, be it for cosmetics, cooking oil or the tourist trips. This is UNESCO’s cultural heritage packaged up to give a product its authenticity.

The reality is that much of the oil sold internationally today is produced in state-of-the-art facilities, sometimes not even in Morocco. 

Kernels

The result is “that all the added value goes abroad,” says Omar Agodim, a project manager at the United Nations Development Programme. When it comes to buying the fruit, “large industrialists have great purchasing power. With their strength, they can influence prices.”

If things are difficult for the co-operatives, they are even harder for those women outside the system.

Locals in the village call it the ‘house with the yellow door’. Inside is a large, sparsely furnished living space. Rugs cover part of the floor and cushions are propped against the wall. 

To the right lies a large and small stone, a basket of fruit and one of kernels. This is where Aïcha, a Berber woman, crushes the nuts.

She would like to work in a co-operative and talks about setting one up in the village. But for now, she sells the kernels directly to a wholesaler who pays 80 dirhams (around €7.50) for five kilos of almonds - crushing half a kilo would take one day of continuous work.

Gift

They used to be able to sell argan oil, which commands a higher price, but issues of trust about the purity of the oil means it is no longer sold in the souk – another way market forces now work against the women.

The reality is that the bulk of the value is being added outside of Morocco with profits mainly going to companies overseas. 

Meanwhile, the women, the custodians of the knowledge of the tree and the oil that UNESCO thinks so highly of are increasingly pushed to the margins.

Aicha’s friend and neighbour sums it up: “Since we were young, we have always worked with argan oil at home. Our grandmothers used to make it. But today, we no longer give it as a gift, we no longer eat it, and we no longer sell it. 

“All we have left of argan is the smell!”

These Authors

Juliet Ferguson, Julie Chaudier and Alice Facchini are reporters with Investigate Europe, a non-profit journalism collective producing cross-border investigations across the continent. This project was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.