Berber women in south-west Morocco harvest Argan nuts from Iron Wood trees for both their medicinal and culinary use. Argan oil is reputed for its many benefits including treatment of heart disease and is particularly popular in France.
The fact that the nuts acquire a foul aroma in passing through the animal’s digestive tract makes it easy to tell this oil apart from food-grade produce with its rich, walnut oil-like flavor.
To The Sounds Of Argan Bashing

ARGAN Archach

Despite the forests being declared a protected region by UNESCO, the rare Iron Woods are under threat due to over exploitation of the trees for their wood.

Known as the Tree of Life this tree can support the local population and its livestock during drought periods.

The fruit sustains goats, the leaves provide forage for camels and sheep, whilst cattle live off the press cake that remains after the oil is made.

The sharp spiny thorns prevent the fruit being picked by hand, but in the past this did not stop large number of goats clambering to the topmost branches to devour them, so much so, that the Argan Groves were known as tree meadows.

However, nowadays the goats are kept out by forestry wardens and their owners are fined if they stray!
The seeds are in very hard casings inside the fruit layer. These are cracked open by hand by Berber women between a stone and a stone anvil.

It takes 10-12 hours to crack enough nuts to obtain sufficient seeds to yield 1 litre of oil. The fruit pulp can then be fed to goats, the 2nd grade oil used for burning in lamps and finally the remaining seed pulp fed to cattle. Nothing is wasted, the casings are used as kindling or as fuel in clay bread ovens, as they can burn for 30 minutes.

Using traditional methods, 2 pints of oil requires about 220 lbs. of fruit, and up to about 20 hours of work in one of about 25 women’s cooperatives set up in the region since 1996. Some of the co-ops have introduced a degree of mechanization that reduces the amount of manual labor required.