The (Unwholesome?) Future Of Argan Oil – Part II

In my previous post, I started talking about some of the different problems facing the Argan tree as well as the traditional pure Argan oil producers.

In this 2nd part I´m willing to shed some light on the struggle for the survival of the Argan tree and Argan oil that is bound to continue as we live in an era when usurpation is obviously practiced at will.

Is This A Rip-Off Blueprint Targeting Argan Oil?

Let´s take an example of the corporation I mentioned earlier:

Here I will need your patience for a moment.

This example may seem off-topic, yet it is invaluable in this context as it serves to give you -as a product consumer- a better understanding of this system so you can start recognizing its pitfalls early enough and avoid them for your own good.

Around the 1960s and 1970s, this company´s primary function was being a chemical producer for the U.S. Military. See “Agent Orange”.

When they first started wedging their path in to the practices of genetic modification of species, plant and mammal-related, they hid their real intentions and claimed their goal was to provide beneficial and biotechnological agricultural products for farmers, that increase the availability of seeds and herbicides, and improve the farmers’ productivity while reducing farming costs.

Later on the jig was up:

It became pretty obvious that Mon.santo* used this euphemistic veil only to numb the public opinion and stifle any resistance while weaving their plan, lobbying around politically and legislatively to secure their back and dubious practices.

After that, many farmers in Canada and the U.S. suddenly had lawsuits knocking at their doors on behalf of Mon.santo* for supposed patent infringement issues.

This unveiled the fact that the company´s ultimate goal was to prevent farmers from saving seeds for the following seasons like it was done for generations!

This gave birth to a -more or less- widespread opposition from environmental organizations as well as farmer associations who realized (maybe a little too late!?) the dangers of these “new”  agricultural products.

The more dangerous is yet to come though, as the condemned farmers had the “privilege” to listen to the judges’ stunning jokes that they were cultivating plants containing patented genes/cells without license even if these might have come carried by the wind from neighboring farms. In short: guilty!

Isn´t this plain biopiracy? You might ask!

Yes it is, simply because these people are commercializing biological materials that are naturally occurring and which nobody should have any copyright or patent rights on! But that didn´t intercede for them at the court.

Don´t get me wrong folks, but unless you´ve been living isolated under a rock, you´ve probably heard about this kind of horror facts before. This is the exact same formula big pharma-industry companies who “own” patents on human DNA used and are using nowadays.

I guess by now, you can imagine where all this is heading.

And guess what? This is the very same Blueprint these guys with the “new” Argan tree are adopting!

With that in mind, one can unfortunately predict that in some years, these guys will literally be “hanging” anyone talking about Argan trees or selling Argan oil without their permission and call it “patent infringement” as they will be owning the weird Argan-genes patent of their tree growing all over the globe!

If it heads further this way, it will be only a matter of time.

Not convinced yet? Good, I encourage you to make your own research to find out 😉

My Thoughts

There are already many programs the Moroccan government has initiated in order to -among others- raise the awareness of the health, socioeconomic, and environmental value Argan tree has.

The results are already seenable as many of the Argan oil cooperatives here set a goal of planting 10 Argan trees per person per year to make sure the future generations reap the benefits of this precious nature gift.

But there´s a long way still to go in terms of preserving the Argan tree and the traditional Argan oil production:

• To secure the socioeconomic sustainability of the producers on a larger scale and enable them to look over the migration option which will result in the corporations monopole of the Argan oil production;
• To subsidize and encourage the cooperatives to preserve the traditional ancestral processing methods (unlike what some fame-hungry people are preaching!)
• To urge people buying Argan oil to question the provenance of the products.

These are by no means the only solutions or options available.

Yet these will not only compete against the juicy financial promises the frankenstein-tree owners are promoting to spread their profit-tailored products, but will also enable people to see the “new” Argan tree / Argan oil for what it really is: A Scam!