Ait M'hamed Day 6
Spontaneously invited on a nursery tour and trip into farming douars. The drive was beautiful, lovely to see other parts of the valleys and diverse landscapes in the High Atlas. Something that first struck me in Imegdale, and I was reminded of strongly today was how much the landscape and especially the green aspects of the landscape have been created and are still curated and evolving from human presence and use. The greenest and most ‘idyllic’ parts of the land were where people have created irrigation systems and planted crops or encouraged wild ‘touga’ plants to grow. Such a beautiful reminder of the complex interconnection of culture and their environments- what I hope to explore more in this project.
The nursery we visited was started by the community/commune association of Ait M’hamed and the GDF (possibly some other government organizations). It was along a river with apple, walnut, and other fruit trees of varying ages planted in small orchards. There were about ten of us (drove in 3 cars) who were taken on the tour. Malika was speaking and answering questions about the work of the commune association and GDF and that the plants being grown were given to people for free to help their livelihoods and as possible income sources. The majority of the plants were medicinal or aromatics, although there were some saplings and sprouts of tasaft, carob and a few other trees. Next we drove to another valley near Bernet douar where the commune has purchased land to build an apple cold storage unit. Once again there was a discussion- largely about getting more women in the community to be involved in community projects and having their own income. There has been association projects and gradual expansion of fruit/nut arboriculture (especially apples) in the arable regions of the commune. But farmers have to sell their apples and fruits right away for lower prices when the market is saturated. Hence the push for a cold storage so that excess apples can be stored for long periods and sold out of season for higher prices. The officials there with us not from Ait M’hamed were from Rabat helping the project, one was a renewable energy engineer focused on bringing solar energy to the project to power the cold storage when it is built. Since he was the only person seeming to speak English he spoke to us for a while explaining why solar was ideal for Morocco. There are an average of 28 cloudy days each year (not sure if that was for all or just the High Atlas or an average in Morocco). But it is under promoted and implemented since butane is subsidised since considered essential especially for poorer and rural people since the main source of cooking and heating fuel. So thankful Touda suggested we come, was a beautiful and insightful tour of the valley- also relevant to see how agriculture is being expanded as well as fodder species (well mainly tasaft).
After arriving back at the commune office, we interviewed the man who drove us on the tour. He has a big farm in the douar Bernet we went through, but also works at an office here in the commune centre. Gave us some very insightful information and also showed us a lot of pictures from his farm- looked so beautiful and he has a real diversity of crops, and his goal is not to buy any food for his family.