Festival celebrates rose harvest скачать в хорошем качестве

Festival celebrates rose harvest

(14 May 2017) LEADIN: The Rose Festival is being held in Kalaat M'Gouna for the 55th year. The flower crop is very important to this part of Morocco and this event celebrates it in style. STORYLINE: Miss Roses waves to her adoring fans. Soukayna Lemqadmi has taken the crown at the Rose Festival in Kalaat M'Gouna. The event celebrates roses and each year one young woman is given the title of Miss Roses and leads the carnival procession through the town. Twenty-one year-old Lemqadmi says she was "surprised" to win and only expected to come second or third in the competition. Regional officials cut the ribbon at the annual event, and the well known folk music dance group Ahidous Mgouna entertains festival goers. But the real draw is the rose products. Rose water, dried buds and other items containing the scented flower are on display here. Around 250 exhibitors have brought their goods to the festival. "The diversification of the production of rose derivatives by cooperatives has helped them to open to international markets," says festival director Boubker Rochdi. "This festival gives cooperatives the opportunity to participate in the national exhibitions and also the international exhibitions such as Abu Dhabi and Paris International Agricultural Show." Roses are a significant part of the economy is this area of southern Morocco. Their bushes are grown at the edge of plots over a length of around 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles), equivalent to 1,500 hectares. The fresh pre-Saharan climate and deep alkaline clay soil are ideal conditions for the plants to grow. Roses are usually harvested in the first three weeks of May. The hedges yield between 1 and 2.4 kilogrammes of flowers per metre. Farmer Ahmed Soufi owns 11 hectares of rose farmland. He says this harvest has been shorter than last year's due to "insufficient rainfall and heat". Several cooperatives have been set up to deal with the crop. Farmers bring the flowers here to be weighed, cleaned and processed into products like rose essence and rose water. Abdelkrim Ait Lhaj, President of the Chamber of Agriculture, says the crop has become more valuable and the area of regional farmland devoted to growing roses has gone up 30 percent. It takes 5,000 kilos of roses to produce just one kilo of the flower's essence - most will be exported to international perfumers. Soufi exports around 29 tonnes of rose water and one litre of the more concentrated essential oil to countries including the United States, France, Switzerland and the UAE. The industry provides work for 7,000 women in Kalaat M'Gouna. Jaouhari Fatma is a member of Women's Dades Cooperative which is 100 percent female. Its 20 members prepare the roses, produce rose water and dry the buds together. "It has helped us to gain a source of income and also to show people that women can succeed in their work," says Fatma. "Each time we add a new option to the cooperative - recently we added the distillery machine." Roses provide thousands of jobs in the region and the festival draws Moroccans and international tourists to the town. The Rose Festival, which also includes exciting horse displays, runs from 11-14 May. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...