Cholera of the peasants of Taliouine: how the saffron becomes a source of misfortune

Taliouine, between the Anti Atlas and the High Atlas, two large water reserves (Jbel Siroua at 3,304 m altitude and Jbel Toubkal at 4165 m altitude), is a purely agricultural region. The cultivation of saffron is one of its characteristics, quality harvest of organic agricultural products: the red gold of Morocco! That's what it's called in the field of tourism.

 Each year in the fall season, the rural women of Taliouine have a specific activity in the collection of this product, it is a socio-cultural activity that has deep roots in the agricultural history of the region. The season of this harvest is a harmony that brings us back simultaneously to the songs and to the work of the women: at dawn, their basket in hand towards the fields of exploitation close to slavery. The violet-colored flower must be torn off before it is closed by the heat of the sun's rays. A heavy job awaits her at home after the harvest: she spends the nights awake to separate the stamens from the flower: the saffron.

The work of the peasant woman is an activity like other activities during her life, she has taught it to her daughters who are preparing for marriage and working without salary. Many of the rural women who work in the saffron fields do not receive a penny and remain throughout their lives dependent on the exploitation of their sweat and blood for man. The latter takes part of the harvest each week to the souk (market): a small income that barely arrives to pay the expenses of the family's food for a week, but that depends on the decision of the big saffron merchants who set the sale price in each day of souk. Double exploitation of the work force of peasant women in the fields and in the home, as well as an added value to the pockets of the big merchants to increase their capital.

For millennia the natural saffron creates its own conservation to survive. It has the ability to multiply in the land of Taliouine, preserve its specific genetic traits and constitute a characteristic Moroccan species

Give saffron (the house of saffron)

Dar saffron (the house of saffron) was built in Taliouine in 2011 by local buying capital supported by international capital. Give saffron is a product marketing market, the opening of this establishment on November 10, 2011, is the beginning of an era in the life of Moroccan saffron. The mafia formed in the region since 1956 at the dawn of formal independence / new occupation, to serve the interests of the buyers' regime, now reaches its highest level. After having gotten into Taliouine's public assets, the finances of the municipality and the 13 rural communes are subject to systematic theft by a group that constitutes the mafia installed in the communal councils. Cooperatives and peasant associations are led by the protagonists of this group that has influence over the life of the poor peasants of Taliouine.

An association is formed to organize the robbery in the so-called Casa del azafrán by the mafia bosses, after having stolen the money from the Souktana cooperative every time its board of directors was restructured since the 70s. Several other cooperatives have been formed today by the intervention of the buyer capital: a wide margin of theft of the goods of the peasants is open to this mafia to not give opportunity to any flight of money that can be recovered by the peasants. The peasants are now forced to take their products to Dar azafrán and wait months and months for the proceeds of the sale. From 30 dirhams (2.7 euros) a gram of saffron in 2011 to 12 dirhams (1'10 euros) the following years. It is truly a catastrophe for the economy of the poor peasants who are subjected and controlled by the saffron mafia.

Genetically modified bulbs

Taliouine's saffron bulbs are being genetically modified by multinationals that, for the last two years, with the help of Taliouine's saffron mafia, circulate fake genetically modified bulbs, which do not contain the genetic character of multiplication: they are sterile for force the peasants to buy their bulbs. The unfortunate poor peasants are surprised by this disaster that condemns their own natural and organic plant material. After having spread the cultivation of saffron in other regions, Oujda, Midelt, Errachidia, El Houz ... saffron is no longer a natural vegetable characteristic of Taliouine. The genetically modified bulbs provoke the wild exploitation of water, land and natural resources of Taliouine, by international capital. The only way to fight is the uprising of peasant women for their labor rights, in the future the exploitation of agricultural workers will multiply what they will need from an organized labor movement.

Saffron Festival: popular response

Since 2008 the saffron mafia organizes the so-called saffron festival supported by the buying capital to promote this destructive program. This is an opportunity to bring together all the components of the system of wild exploitation of natural plant resources, companies, cooperatives and associations have participated to applaud this program. Recipes, dishes and gifts (saffron packets) refer to the actors of this war against the organic: everything is harmony that traces us back simultaneously to the songs of death and to the sacrifice of the work force of the peasant women in the fields of saffron.

On the occasion of each festival, young people from Taliouine try to express their anger at what happens in this isolated area: youth unemployment, illiteracy, especially among women, lack of service at a health center, lack of teachers and classes, isolation from villages (groups of people isolated in the mountains), lack of sanitation ... Fear reigns in the mountains because of the terror of the forces of repression (gendarmes, agents of the authorities), the Court of first instance of Taroudant is systematically a repressive apparatus that sustains this terror.

 On November 9, 2013, on the second day of this year's festival, the anger of the young people was expressed by organizing a rally at the so-called Casa del azafrán. When the protagonists of the theft of Taliouine's public goods sat at the table in the halls of this establishment, the young people have manifested their demands accusing these thieves of the goods of the poor peasants. A follow-up Committee has been created by this group of young people to defend the rights of peasant women to water, land, natural resources and the Amazigh culture.