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Morocco’s aromatic plants find a champion

Dr Mustapha Ismaili-Alaoui of the IAV in Rabat, Morocco. (IDRC Photo: M. Hibler)

2003-05-16

Telephones rarely stops ringing in Dr Mustafa Ismaili-Alaoui’s crowded office at the Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II (IAV) on the outskirts of Rabat — if not the one on the desk, then his cellular. There’s also a steady stream of visitors — a local government official from Errachidia Province in the south of Morocco, a businessman from Casablanca interested in IAV’s olive processing technologies, a representative from the Ministry of Water and Forests seeking help in preparing a brief on the development of the aromatic plants sector, students, colleagues, technicians.

Professor Ismaili-Alaoui’s research interests are almost as varied as his guests — medicinal and aromatic plants, agroindustrial processing, appropriate technologies, biodiversity conservation, and biotechnology among them. But there’s a common thread linking these interests, and about which he is passionate: enhancing the value of Morocco’s natural heritage. And a key ally in these activities has been Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Making the most of resources

An agro-industrial engineer trained at IAV, Mustapha Ismaili-Alaoui subsequently specialized in biotechnology. His interest in medicinal and aromatic plants was spurred when he set off to France to complete his doctorate. With colleagues in Paris and in Marseilles, he began working on these plant products, particularly terpenes "because at the time Morocco’s products on the international market weren’t worth very much — essential oils extracted from pennyroyal (mentha pulegium) for the production of menthol, for instance, had been supplanted by other products." His goal was to find ways of increasing the value of these essential oils. The cultivation, processing, and marketing of essential oils was then — and is still — viewed by the Moroccan government as a potential means of combatting both rural poverty and desertification.

On his return to Morocco and the IAV, he oriented his research toward identifying and evaluating the country’s forest resources. With an IDRC grant in 1990, he and his IAV colleagues set out to breathe new life into the essential oils industry in the poor Southern Atlas region where smallscale livestock husbandry and subsistence farming are the main sources of income. "I come from this isolated region," says Dr Ismaili-Alaoui, "and I chose it so that I could give back a little of what it had given me."

The essential oils industry on these arid plains and hillsides has changed little over the centuries. Distillers travel the countryside by truck, buying harvests of wild plants — mainly verbena, thyme, and wormwood (artemesia) — and processing them on the spot. The traditional equipment is slow. It is also prone to overheating, which damages the plant material and reduces the quality of the oil. The goal of the project, carried out in collaboration with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Horticulture Research and Development Centre (HRDC) in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec, was to "develop a technology that met international standards so that these products could compete on the international market."

As the research team worked to fine-tune improved equipment for extracting essential oils from artemisia and verbena, they learnt a great deal about the composition of these plants and their essences. Two low-cost pilot stills were developed. Easy to assemble and transport, they can also be manufactured by local tinsmiths and use plant residue as fuel. The project marked a first for Morocco: its verbena oil found a foreign buyer.

Taming the wild rosemary

Dr Ismaili-Alaoui then turned his attention to rosemary, which grows wild on Morocco's sandy slopes and plains. Morocco exports 60 tonnes of its essential oil a year. But, he says, "people cut the plants in all kinds of ways, at different times, at different heights." To find ways of exploiting this resource rationally and sustainably, he launched a company — Tafilalet Arômes Méditerranée (TAROMED) in 1999. Its first project, supported by the Ministry of Water and Forests, Errachidia’s governor, and the Tafilalet association, focused on some10,000 hectares where the rosemary had never been exploited, he says. In fact, the shrubs were so tall and woody — rosemary can grow to 2.2 metres — that people burned them as firewood. A large company, Les Arômes du Maroc, was brought in as partner. The deal was this, explains Dr Ismaili-Alaoui: in return for the company’s investment — about CA $340,000 — the research team would rejuvenate the plants on 2,000 hectares and establish rational exploitation techniques. After the company had recovered its investment, it would turn over the operation to local cooperatives and the new company. "The contract was for three years," he says, "but they recovered their investment in the first."

Access roads have been built through the rocky hillsides and water supply points provided. A distillation facility was also set up, using results from the earlier IDRC-supported projects. For the local community, the project created 50,000 days of work in 1999-2000, and yielded revenues of about 160,000 dirhams (CA $23,000). "Some families’ incomes increased six-fold," says Dr Ismaili-Alaoui. As a result, the community has started reforesting the area. "The people now understand what’s at stake," says Dr Ismaili-Alaoui. "You can see them bringing in gas containers on their backs for fuel instead of burning the rosemary like they once did."

The Ministry of Water and Forests has now asked for his assistance in developing similar cooperatives throughout the country. None of this would have been possible without the knowledge gained through the olive biotransformation and aromatic plants projects supported by IDRC, he stresses. Work is continuing to optimize the quality and yields of essential oils, and to train students in the technologies developed.

A lasting contribution

Most important for Dr Ismaili-Alaoui "is my satisfaction in being able to transfer what I know to populations who need it most. That’s our payback — to see their wellbeing and buying power increase. We don’t come only with programs. We bring something concrete — a technology, a know-how. We have facilitators who speak their language and we leave things behind for them, for their benefit. When we began the aromatic plants project," he says, "we were almost chased away. People thought we had come to take their lands. Now when we come, they slaughter sheep in our honour. That’s because they’ve seen that they can earn an income from their own resources. The territory is theirs. The plants are theirs. All we brought was a way to harvest, to rejuvenate the plants, to transform the product with them so that value could be added on the spot."

Michelle Hibler is Chief, Writing and Translation in IDRC’s Communications Division

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