Severe floods in Pakistan have claimed more than 100 lives and left entire villages under water. Thousands of animals have also been affected: buffaloes, cows, and goats have little to no food and are growing weaker by the day.
How does Animal Heroes help?
Faisal Saleem, the head of a local Christian church in a small village in Punjab, is leading his community in collecting emergency aid for flood victims. When he saw so many starving animals, it broke his heart. He reached out to us — asking for help to provide food for animals.
Faisal Saleem, the head of a local Christian church
We support his work by collecting donations to enable Pastor Faisal to buy food for the animals in the area that is most affected.
How can you help?
With your support, the first load of animal food can be delivered to the animals as early as next week.
These are the local prices:
A 50kg bag of food costs 12 euro.
To feed one cow or buffalo a day costs 6 euro.
How can you donate?
Donating is safe, fast and easy. There are no obligations: you can opt for a one-time donation. If you want to be more involved, you can create an account to see donations and project updates. You can make a donation in 5 simple steps:
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Goats are famous for their climbing ability, but most members of the field-dwelling goat community can’t put those skills to use. Cue the goat tower. These strange structures serve no real practical purpose, but they’re funny and make for great photos.
A wise looking goat in his tower. (Getty Images)
The idea dates back to 13th century Portugal, when a winemaker decided goats didn’t belong in a field. To provide his goats with a terrain he thought they would enjoy more, he constructed the world’s first goat tower, and the small building came to define the wine estate.
To this day, the vineyard at Quinta Da Aveleda has a goat tower, and they are proud of their unique little role in history, as well as the way they inspired the others. While only a handful of goat towers have popped up around the world, Francisco Guedes Almeida, heir of the Aveleda winemakers, once encountered one by chance in South Africa, unaware of the direct link to his family home.
A goat tower at Fairview Wines Estate in Paarl, South Africa.
“I was doing my master’s degree in wine and traveling the world when I went to this place in South Africa,” Almeida told UOL. “I immediately called my uncle saying: ‘I’m in a place that feels like home. It has a goat tower like I’ve never seen. I’ve only seen it in Aveleda.’ And my uncle said, ‘You’re in Fairview.’ This producer made goat cheese and when he visited Aveleda in the 1960s he asked for permission to build one on his property. We still have his letter today.”
The tower Almeida encountered was at Fairview Cheese & Wine Farm in Paarl, South Africa. As well as this one and the tower in Quinta da Aveleda, there are two famous goat towers in the United States – the Tower of Baaa in Illinois and the tower at Silky O’Sullivan’s Bar in Memphis. There are also goat towers at Ekeby Farm in Moss, Norway, and the Torre de Cabras at Finca el Rocio near Córdoba, Argentina.
There is also a digital goat tower, found in GoatVille on the Goat Simulator video game. While it might sound like a niche market for a video game, Goat Simulator (similar to goat towers) took the internet by storm and the game sold by the millions.
I wrote about goats in trees in Morocco before Enjoy
Morocco is experiencing its worst drought in decades, making it increasingly difficult for farmers to grow crops in this western region of Marakesh-Safi. Beginning in the early 2000s, some started treeing their goats to earn tips from tourists. The income source dwindled after the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020. But after the country’s lockdown ended, the goat-display business resumed—and with it, criticism from animal welfare advocates such as Liz Cabrera Holtz, Wildlife Campaign Manager at World Animal Protection, a UK-based global nonprofit.
“These animals are being manipulated and exploited,” she says. “They're not moving freely. They don't have access to food, water, or even shade. Being forced to stay in trees for hours is not a normal behavior."
‘Flying goats’
The goats perched in Morocco’s trees are “trained to do it as a spectacle,” says Marrakech-based tour guide Mohamed Elaamrani. “They can climb trees and even mountains, and they’re really good at it. Some of my guests refer to them as flying goats. They want to see them because there’s nothing like this anywhere else in the world.”
The argan nut contains one to three oil-rich argan kernels. Extraction yields from 30% to 50% of the oil in the kernels, depending on the method It takes about 40 kilograms (88 lb) of dried argan fruit to produce only one litre of oil.
Extraction is key to the production process. To extract the kernels, workers first dry argan fruit in the open air and then remove the fleshy pulp. Some producers remove the flesh mechanically without drying the fruit. Moroccans usually use the flesh as animal feed. A tradition in some areas of Morocco allows goats to climb argan trees to feed freely on the fruits. The kernels are then later retrieved from the goat droppings, considerably reducing the labour involved in extraction at the expense of some potential gustatory aversion. In modern practice, the peels are removed by hand.
Workers gently roast kernels they will use to make culinary argan oil. After the argan kernels cool, workers grind and press them. The brown-coloured mash expels pure, unfiltered argan oil. Finally, they decant unfiltered argan oil into vessels. The remaining press cake is protein-rich and frequently used as cattle feed.
Plantation of argans
After the first sales in the US of the cosmetic product in 2003, demand soared and production increased. In 2012 the Moroccan government planned for increased production, then around 2,500 tonnes, to 4,000 tonnes by 2020.
It was found that stocks of argan oil were being diluted with oils such as sunflower, as the extraction process for pure argan oil can be difficult, and is costly. In 2012, the Moroccan government started to randomly pull argan shipments and test for purity before exporting.
By 2020, production had greatly increased, especially after studies had suggested health benefits. Almost all of the oil is sourced in Morocco, and is forecast to reach 19,623 US tons (17,802 ton) in 2022, up from 4,836 (4387 ton) in 2014; in value terms, US$1.79 billion (£1.4 billion).
The area of producing the oil is expanding: in 2020 it had started near the city of Agadir, 175 kilometres (109 mi) south of the traditional argan-producing area of Essaouira, and is due to expand north.
40 kilograms (88 lb) of dried argan fruit produces only one litre of oil. Mechanically extracted oil production has started, with the industrial scale driving down prices, impacting the small co-operatives, where work is mostly done by Berber women in the traditional, labour-intensive way. Mechanically produced oil can cost as little as US$22 a litre, less than half the cost of oil made by the cooperatives. This can have a great social impact. However, the huge cosmetics company L'Oréal has pledged to source all of its argan oil from the small co-operatives that sign up to the principles of fair trade.
Environmental
The argan tree provides food, shelter and protection from desertification. The trees' deep roots help prevent desert encroachment. The canopy of argan trees also provides shade for other agricultural products, and the leaves and fruit provide feed for animals.
The argan tree also helps landscape stability, helping to prevent soil erosion, providing shade for pasture grasses, and helping to replenish aquifers.
Producing argan oil has helped to protect argan trees from being cut down. In addition, regeneration of the Arganeraie has also been carried out: in 2009 an operation to plant 4,300 argan plants was launched in Meskala in the province of Essaouira
Social
The production of argan oil has always had a socio economic function. At present, its production supports about 2.2 million people in the main argan oil–producing region, the Arganeraie.
Much of the argan oil produced today is made by a number of women's co-operatives. Co-sponsored by the Social Development Agency with the support of the European Union, the UCFA (Union des Cooperatives des Femmes de l’Arganeraie) is the largest union of argan oil co-operatives in Morocco. It comprises 22 co-operatives that are found in other parts of the region.
As of 2020, there were around 300 small firms, mostly co-operatives, in the area about 25 kilometres (16 mi) inland from Essaouira, on the Atlantic coast. The women who harvest the seeds are mostly of the Berber ethnic group, with traditional skills dating from generations ago.
The success of the argan co-operatives has also encouraged other producers of agricultural products to adopt the co-operative model.[20] The establishment of the co-operatives has been aided by support from within Morocco, notably the Foundation Mohamed VI pour la Recherche et la Sauvegarde de l’Arganier (Mohammed VI Foundation for Research and Protection of the Argan Tree),[21] and from international organisations, including Canada's International Development Research Centre and the European Commission.[citation needed]
However, despite many working a very long day, the women usually make less than US$221 (£170 stg) a month (and even as low as US$50), which is below Morocco's recommended national minimum wage. Zoubida Charrouf, a chemistry professor at Mohammed V University of Rabat is an advocate for higher salaries, as well as the author of studies into its health benefits. She says that some companies pay drivers to bring tourists to their facilities, to sell them the oil, rather than pay their workers properly. Morocco's minister of agriculture has asked for Charrouf's help in forcing firms to join trade bodies and commit to paying staff the minimum wage.
