Tree Of Life

It may be the beauty industry ’s trend du jour, but Moroccans have long known the healing benefits of argan oil and its gift of social, environmental and economic transformation. Shamilee Vellu reports.

- Shamilee Vellu

I'm perched on a low stool, legs splayed unceremoniously apart to accommodate a squat stone grinder which I’ve been turning for a good five minutes. My initial enthusiasm is rapidly fading – the treacly argan oil paste I’m pressing may as well be molasses at the excruciatingly slow rate it drips into a waiting jar. My only consolation is that I’ve proved somewhat entertaining for the row of Berber grandmothers now openly chuckling at my exertions. “Ffffhoooff,” one exclaims, sympathetically miming the wiping of sweat from her brow as she urges me to surrender and cease my labours.

I’m probably one in a long line of foreign visitors who’ve tried (and failed at) extracting argan oil the traditional way at Co-operative Feminine Tilila in Essaouira, one of over 12,000 women-run co-operatives dotted throughout southwest Morocco. In a large stone room, which remains cool and airy despite the scorching heat outside, a row of women line the walls, engaged in different stages of the oil extraction process.

This begins with baskets of wrinkled, purplish-brown dried argan fruit, which fall naturally from trees in late summer. The rind and pulp are removed, revealing an extremely hard nut, which has to be manually cracked open by hand, typically by knocking it against a rock. This in turn yields one to three precious light-brown kernels, which are then pressed in specially designed machines to yield oil for cosmetic use, or roasted for culinary purposes. Nothing is wasted. The leaves and pulp are fed to livestock, husks are burned for fuel. It is – as I learned – tiring, repetitive work: It takes 30kg of fruit and 15 hours of labour to make 1 litre of oil. According to UNESCO (which in 1998 named the country’s argan forest a UNESCO biosphere reserve), argan oil retails for up to US$300 (S$410) per litre, making it the world’s most expensive edible oil.