High Atlas Foundation

The planting season begins in January 2012.  Now is when you can make a profound difference in the lives of rural Moroccan families.  Eighty-five percent of rural households earn less than the national average.  The low market-value of traditional staples barley and corn (grown on approximately 70 percent on Moroccan farmland yet generate 10-15 percent of agricultural revenue) has compelled farmers to transition to plant cash-crops, most commonly fruit trees, to generate significantly greater income.

This community fruit tree nursery project integrates solutions to socio-economic and environmental challenges facing rural Moroccan communities. The project benefits include:

• Increasing multiple-fold average household incomes from fruit sales;
• Diversifying the rural economy and creating employment;
• Strengthening the natural environment by planting fruit trees that do not require pesticides and that will prevent soil erosion and desertification;
• Developing the agricultural technical skills of rural farmers, specifically in regard to tree nursery management (including, grafting, planting, treatment of diseases, and marketing);
• Diversifying diets and contributing to public health; and
• Strengthening democratic processes and creating diverse partnerships to alleviate poverty.

Further, the approach of building a community-managed nursery provides special advantages:

• Saplings are a fraction of the cost of two year old trees ready to be planted in orchards;
• Community nurseries involve the transfer of important technical skills that enable rural people to replenish their orchards in the future; and
• Nurseries are new and innovative profit-making enterprises and are needed to expand to meet the immense demand for fruit trees by rural Moroccan communities.

Thank you again to everyone for making the Moroccan Film Festival a very special occasion, especially for the Moroccan rural communities HAF seeks to benefit.  About $5,000 was raised for the 1 Million Tree Campaign – which will plant about 10,000 fruit saplings (non-pesticide requiring) in a community-managed tree nursery.  This will create major economic and environmental benefits as the tree mature.

The Sponsors of the Festival were really fantastic: Moroccan National Tourist Office (thank you Chakib Ghadouani), Exotic Imports (thank you Didier Pariente), Western Union, Morocco World News (thank you Samir Bennis), Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels de Marrakech, Ten Bells, Atlas Café and Sigma Phi Epsilon NJ Alpha Chapter.

Thank you to filmmaker Ali Essafi and musicians Hassan Hakmoun and Malika Zarra for making the Director’s dinner so memorable.

And to Simon Russell, for being so delightful and taking the wonderful photos.  Enjoy them.

Links:

• The Film festival in Morocco World News
• Press Release about HAF's Film Festival

PLANTING A FRUIT TREE NURSERY FOR RURAL DISADVANTAGED MOROCCAN FAMILIES ON LAND PROVIDED BY THE MOROCCAN-JEWISH COMMUNITY IN THE AIT BAYOUD VILLAGE, ESSAOUIRA, MOROCCO - A PARTNERSHIP PROPOSAL OF THE HIGH ATLAS FOUNDATION

 This project will plant 120,000 almond and pomegranate seeds and saplings over five years on 1 hectare of land, located from the outer wall of the housing building that is part of the complex of the burial site of the revered Rabbi Nissim ben Nissim, in the Ait Bayoud village of the Essaouira province.  The arable land is provided in-kind by the Moroccan Jewish community for this proposed tree nursery of fruit varieties that do not require pesticides.  The project is for the benefit the surrounding rural villages that are socio-economically disadvantaged. 

At the beginning of the project’s first year (February-March 2012), 60,000 pomegranate and almond seeds/saplings will be planted on the contributed land, and after two years the trees will be distributed for free to approximately 500 households of the surrounding villages.  People will plant the trees in their own orchards; they will also maintain them and be the sole beneficiaries of the new income generated from fruit yields.  The third year, the land will be left fallow and revitalize.  At the beginning of the project’s fourth year, 60,000 fruit saplings will be planted again, and will be distributed to an additional 500 households (1,000 total) at the end of the project’s fifth year.  After 6 to 8 years, the 100,000 trees (factoring in survival rates) will generate for the rural communities approximately $7,500,000 in fruit yields, which will increase multiple-fold average household incomes.  The project will also sustainably prevent erosion and desertification.   

This proposal to partner with the High Atlas Foundation to fully implement the Moroccan community-managed fruit tree nursery kindly requests $46,450.  The new Initiative to restore and preserve Jewish cemeteries in Morocco, which is under Royal Patronage, is synergistic with this proposed project that embodies diverse cultural partnership to develop rural communities that neighbor a Jewish cemetery.  This proposed project is a pilot project; there are other similar special sites in rural areas that the Moroccan Jewish community can potentially contribute.  The project creates a real example of Moroccan diversity and unity, and implementing it will also create a vital international example of diverse collaboration.

• Project proposal update (PDF)