Beni Zeroual
More actions
| Beni Zeroual | |
|---|---|
| ActiveCannabis last recorded here in 2023 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Rif Mountains |
| Geography | |
| Country | Morocco |
| Province/State | Taounate Province |
| Coordinates | 34.65, -4.94 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 1,300 km² |
| Terrain | Foothills on the southern side of the Rif, north of the Ouergha and the Al Wahda reservoir; approximately the Cercle de Ghafsai, Taounate Province |
| Growing history | |
| Dated accessions | 2023 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 8 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Beni Zeroual is a landrace cannabis growing area in the country of the Beni Zeroual, a Jebala tribe of the southern foothills of the Rif Mountains, in Taounate Province of northern Morocco. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy places the tribe's territory north of Fez and south-west of Ketama, and writes that hashish production there "continues to this day".[1] A kif named for the tribe, zerwalî, was once one of the main grades sold in Morocco.[2]: 112
Geography
The business weekly Finances News Hebdo called the small foothill town of Ghafsai, a French army garrison under the protectorate, the seat of the Beni Zeroual, one of the largest of the Jebala tribes. The town lies north of the Ouergha river, close to the Al Wahda dam.[3]
Kif of the Beni Zeroual
Jamal Bellakhdar writes that Morocco once distinguished three main merchantable grades of kif, each named for the region that produced it: ktamî from Ketama, zerwalî from the Beni Zeroual and gnawî from the region of Marrakesh, the Sous and Essaouira. He adds that this no longer held when he wrote in 2013, because the Beni Zeroual and the south had stopped producing.[2]: 112 Chouvy and Kenza Afsahi, citing Bellakhdar's earlier work, name ktami, zerwali and gnawi the three traditional qualities of the kif plant.[4] Chouvy calls the zerouali a cultigen grown in the Jebala country of the Beni Zeroual, and considers it uncertain whether the kif of the later Rif came only from the ktami of Ketama or from a cross between the two.[1]
In the late nineteenth century Abderahmane Ben Tayeb, an informant of the writer Mouliéras, found the Heddawa religious order well established among the Beni Zeroual and kif widely smoked.[2]: 127 Bellakhdar writes that in 1926 the French resident-general, Marshal Lyautey, authorised the extension of cannabis growing to the lands of the Beni Zeroual, the Senhaja Chems and some neighbouring tribes north of Fez, in reward for their submission and their rallying to the occupying forces in the Rif. The crop there was placed under the control of the tobacco and kif monopoly, the Régie Marocaine, which alone could sign growing contracts. The permission was renewed for only three years and was revoked in 1929.[2]: 133
Growing since the 1990s
Two accounts date the arrival of the crop round Ghafsai to the 1990s and 2000. Hini, Errafik and Boujaddi trace the crop's first appearance in the Jebala country of Taounate to the douar of Lmchaa, in the commune of Oudka in the Ghafsai circle, in the middle of the 1990s, from where it spread through the circle.[5]: 263–264 A local association member told Finances News Hebdo in 2015 that kif had appeared at Ghafsai in 2000, in a region it had spared until then, and the paper concluded that its money had lifted whole families out of poverty. He said the hashish made there rarely fetched more than 2,000 dirhams a kilogram, against at least 10,000 at Ketama. That year the authorities had returned to a hard campaign against growers, with arrests and confiscations, and some farmers sowed their plots at night by torchlight.[3]
In 2024 a cooperative at Ghafsai, Al Ochba Al Khadra, employing 27 farmers, was growing the local seed under the national licensing scheme.[6] Taounate is one of the three provinces in which cannabis may be licensed under Law 13-21.[7]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230008 | Timzgana 78 (Karkara) General Population 2023 | Karkara | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230009 | Sidi Lmakhfi 80 (Ain Bni Hamadou) General Population 2023 | Ain Bni Hamadou | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230010 | Galaz 81 (Boussadouk) General Population 2023 | Boussadouk | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230011 | Outka 82 (Lamchaa) General Population 2023 | Lamchaa | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230012 | Biban 83 (Ain Barda) General Population 2023 | Ain Barda | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230013 | Sidi Yahya Bni Zaroual 84 (Ouled Atia) General Population 2023 | Ouled Atia | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230014 | Sidi Elhaj Mohamed 85 (Chritia) General Population 2023 | Chritia | |
| INM-MAR-TAO-0520230015 | Kissan 86 (Bathaa) General Population 2023 | Bathaa |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chouvy, Pierre-Arnaud (2022). "Moroccan hashish as an example of a cannabis terroir product". GeoJournal. 88 (4): 3833–3850. doi:10.1007/s10708-022-10791-5.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Bellakhdar, Jamal (2013). "L'histoire du chanvre au Maghreb". Hespéris-Tamuda. XLVIII: 107–141. ISSN 0018-1005.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Enquête Cannabis : Pour Ghafsaï, Tazrout et Issaguen, le kif n'a pas la même « saveur »". Finances News Hebdo (in français). 14 May 2015. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Chouvy, Pierre-Arnaud; Afsahi, Kenza (2014). "Hashish revival in Morocco". International Journal of Drug Policy. 25 (3): 416–423. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.01.001.
- ↑ Hini, Mohammed; Errafik, Mohammed; Boujaddi, Fatima Zahra (15 August 2026). توسع زراعة القنب الهندي وإشكالية تدهور الموارد الطبيعية بالريف الأوسط الجنوبي "دائرة تاونات نموذجا" [The expansion of cannabis cultivation and the problem of natural resource degradation in the south-central Rif: the Taounate circle]. Revue Géomatique et Gestion des Territoires (in العربية). 3 (1): 260–271. doi:10.34874/PRSM.GGT-2026.V3.N1.9102.
- ↑ "A Taounate, les coopératives premiers bénéficiaires de la culture licite du cannabis". TelQuel (in français). 23 August 2024. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ "Décret n° 2-22-159 du 15 chaabane 1443 (18 mars 2022) pris pour l'application de certaines dispositions de la loi n° 13-21 relative aux usages licites du cannabis" (PDF). Bulletin Officiel (in français) (7080) (Édition de traduction officielle ed.). Rabat: 527. 7 April 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2026.