Morocco presents organic products at IGW

As a result of closer cooperation between the ministries of agriculture in Morocco and Germany, about 20 Moroccan firms and cooperatives presented their products at the International Green Week in Berlin. A range of organic products were on display. The Minister of Agriculture, Aziz Akhannouch and Secretary of State for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Gerd Müller, together opened the big communal corporate stand. (Picture: Folk music at the opening of the Moroccan stand)

Although the North African country still has no organic legislation of its own, it exports a number of products that are controlled by foreign certification organizations like Ecocert or Lacon. According to Stefanie Sohm, from the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Morocco, the government there is currently engaged in devising organic guidelines. In an advisory capacity, the president of Bioland, Thomas Dosch, will visit Morocco, and workshops are planned and discussions will be held with experts from the German Ministry of Agriculture in May. The aim of the producers’ association AMA Bio (2010) is to drive forward the development of the organic sector.

The Moroccan Minister of Agriculture, Aziz Akhannouch, was one of two government representatives from Africa who took part in the German ministry’s international panel discussion at the beginning of the Green Week. Addressing the topic “Trade and World Food Security: Global – Regional – Local”, there was an exchange of views by the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Ciolos, and the EU Minister for Agriculture with the ministers of agriculture from Canada, Russia, Zambia and Morocco. Organic agriculture did not play a direct role in the question of food security. What probably prevented this from happening were too many big concerns on the list of sponsors and their interests.

The 28 exhibitors in the Moroccan pavilion presented an abundant array of regional products. From organic agriculture, farms in conversion or wild harvesting came argan oil, olive oil and walnut oil, saffron, herbs, rose blossom, honey, blossom water and cosmetics derived from the cactus fig, products that are already being exported to Germany, France and the USA. (Picture: Kaltouma Achahour manages a women’s cooperative that makes cosmetics from the cactus fig)