March 31, 2008

 

Tourism thrives hog farming in Muslim Morocco

 

 

Pig farming is now booming in Morocco thanks to a growing tourist industry and practical farmers, according to Agence France Presse.

 

Abhorred by most Muslim countries where pork is considered a "mortal sin", breeders are now taking opportunities of the country's growing tourism industry.  Said Samouk, 39, is breeding 250 pigs at his farm 28 kilometres (17 miles) from the seaside town of Agadir, after being battered by a series of bird flu outbreaks.

 

Samouk, who started pig breeding twenty years ago, aims to double his production within three years to help meet the demands of some 10 million tourists expected to visit Morocco in 2010 -- up from 7.5 million who flocked to the north African country in 2007.

 

While a practicing Muslim, Samouk still doesn't eat pork but he said hog farming is just like any "breeding operation like any other and no imam has ever reprimanded me for it." Pork consumption is prohibited in both Islam and Judaism.

 

Outlawed in Algeria, Mauritania and Libya, pig farming is nonetheless allowed in Tunisia as in Morocco, to cater to the flocks of European and other non-Muslim tourists who head to region's spectacular beaches and deserts.

 

According to Ahmad Bartoul, a buyer for a large Agadir hotel, their clients are 98 percent European, thus "they want bacon for breakfast, ham for lunch and pork chops for dinner".

 

Signs are posted on buffet tables to avoid any confusion about the meat's origin. Morocco's swine industry comprises some 5,000 pigs raised on seven farms located near Agadir, Casablanca and the north-central city of Taza.

 

The breeders include a Christian, two Jews and four Muslims. Annual production is currently estimated at 270 tonnes, bringing in some 12 million dirhams (US$1.6 million) in revenue.

 

The breeders include Jean Yves Yoel Chriquia, a 32-year-old Jew who owns the country's main pork processing factory along with a farm of 1,000 pigs. Chriquia also buys pigs from Samouk and another local farmer at 22 dirhams a kilo. Four times a month, he goes to the slaughter house in Agadir -- but must enter from a door other than that used for deliveries of meat that is halal, or authorised under Islam.

 

Almost 80 percent of Yoel's products are earmarked for hotels in Agadir and Marrakech. The rest heads to supermarkets and butchers -- and to feed some 220 Chinese workers building a nearby motorway.

 

French retiree Bernard Samoyeau was "surprised" to find pork in a Muslim country as he ordered pork at a butcher in Agadir. "We have been pleasantly surprised," he said.

 

Yoel is also pleased, stating sales have doubled in three years and starting to snowball. However, they still remain practical and cautious as their business mainly relies on tourism.

 

Yoel adds that "hotels all over Morocco are calling me up for deliveries, but for the time being I can't respond to all the demands and we're getting there little by little". He clarifies though that he does not see a conflict between his job and his Jewish faith.

 

"Religion is a private matter. What I do is just another way to earn a living and my rabbi has never said anything about it," he said.