Ajddigue Women's Argan Cooperative

Ajddigue has faced four significant challenges in its 15 years of operation:

• Pricing: The market price for argan oil is currently unregulated. Zahra wants to step between the market and her members by setting a fair price they can count on.
  
  
• Environmental Challenges: The rapid disappearance of the argan tree, while a force for the formation of Ajddigue, remains a serious threat to the long-term viability of the cooperative. At least half of the original trees have been cut down in the past few decades and chronic drought may be accelerating their loss. It is not at all clear whether the replanting strategies of Ajddigue and other cooperatives will succeed. “We have a stock of argan fruit that allows us to work for two years,” worries Zahra, “but this is not enough.” Another approach to the problem, increasingly embraced by the cooperatives, is for the government to put the argan trees under stronger legal protection.
  
  
• Unscrupulous Competition: Zahra complains that not all her imitators have been honest: “Fake cooperatives use illiterate women to gain a nonprofit status but they do not treat the women as member-owners of the co- op. They simply use them as wage labor and pocket the profits. These fake co-ops target tourists who do not know any better. They drive the prices down and they sell bad oil.” Zahra is concerned this bad behavior will sully the reputation of all argan cooperatives.
  
  
• Cultural Mores: Ajddigue’s mission of empowering women challenges Muslim traditions that frown on women engaging in business, especially in leadership positions. Historically, Moroccan women, especially married ones, were discouraged or even banned from working. Many of Ajddigue’s first members were widows or single women. This is slowly changing, however. As the Ajddigue’s cooperative has grown and proven its capabilities, there are now instances of men escorting their wives and daughters to the processing plant to become members.
  

Despite these challenges, no one can doubt that Ajddigue has become a major force. There are now 130 other cooperatives for harvesting and marketing argan oil in Morocco.

“Our biggest strength,” says Zahra, “is the fact that we are a real cooperative with a sound social and ecological mission. Our cooperative is also economically viable and shows how rural women can be agents of development themselves. We have learned that the best way to survive is by fostering a culture of cooperatives that shares a socially conscious model of development and creates a network of support.”