I make no secret of the fact that I don’t really like the 4L Trophy Rally, or at least its aggressive green-washing, and even more so its so-called humanitarian argument.
Today was the last day of the 2012 edition, and we watched the lines of small cars pass through Ouarzazate on their way to Marrakesh for the rally’s closing gala.
The 2012 edition was a little different for us, as we participated in a small way, helping a crew to set up a project for the Eco Challenge, which is also organised every year.
An original eco-challenge
A few months ago, we were contacted by Nicolas Crestin, an agricultural engineering student who wanted to do “something different” for his eco-challenge. Of course, he’d read our article, and I think he’d had quite a few discussions with other participants, but it was precisely what we were saying that interested him, and he wanted to do something other than hand out reams of paper.
In a few words, his project was to bring seeds selected by an association, Kokopelli, to adapt them to the particular conditions of southern Morocco, and, after a few years, to develop new varieties requiring little water. It’s an idea we love, but… we had to find out who to give the seeds to! No easy task, especially given the constraints of the rally.
Finding the right partner
Agricultural research is not highly developed in Morocco, and especially in the villages, it is very difficult to innovate in agricultural matters. Traditional techniques, such as irrigation, are not called into question, so it was necessary to find, a priori on the route of the 4L, one or more people who would have both the means and the will, over the long term, to monitor such a project (the associations taking part do ask for regular reports).
However, this type of action is usually carried out by setting up on site and taking the time to talk to the farmers. This allows us to understand their real needs, and above all to show them that we understand them, and that we are not
a guy from the city of Europe who comes along thinking he’s smarter than everyone else and revolutionises what we’ve been doing for centuries.
That’s where we see the extent to which the ‘rally/humanitarian’ association actually dehumanises a lot of things.
The second problem was that the rally route was not known in advance. This limited the search to locations that we were reasonably sure would be on the rally route.
We decided on Ouarzazate. Unfortunately, the Association Horizons, which was contacted first, and which has a large farm, could not take on this project. The ideal partner was finally found in the Sawadi ecolodge, in the palm grove of Skoura.
Sawadi is an ecolodge, but it’s also a farm, producing olive oil, calendula oil and lots of other good things. And above all because Catherine, who runs the ecolodge with Philippe, has real experience in the field, and had already been in contact with Kokopelli.
Handing over the seeds
As the rally did not pass through Skoura, the meeting point was set in Ouarzazate, in front of the Palais des Congrès. Catherine and I were waiting patiently, watching the various 4Ls go by, and we could see them coming from a distance with their headlights on in broad daylight… when finally “ours” stopped, and two students got out, visibly a little tired, quite “sandy”, but also visibly happy and sympathetic.
You can’t see much of the sand in the photo, but they did have their adventurer’s clothes on, which gradually take on an ‘indefinable’ colour depending on the proportions of the sand – earth – dust mixture embedded in the fibres. I immortalised the solemn moment when the seed parcel was handed over (all that was missing was the red carpet and the drums).
avant que nous nous précipitions pour ouvrir le paquet qui contenait une centaine de sachets de graines diverses et variées (tomates, pastèques, courges, piments…)
Come to think of it, anyone who didn’t know what we were doing might have had doubts….
We had time to chat for a quarter of an hour and make plans for our return (to spend more time in the desert), but the crew had to wait for other cars before continuing on to Marrakech. I took the liberty of taking two packets of chilli seeds, which we’ll be giving you regular updates on. If you’re interested in this experience, you’ll find regular updates on our sprouts here, on Sawadi’s website or on Nicolas and Aurélie’s website.
After lunch with Catherine, in a small restaurant near the Kasbah of Taourirt, we saw many more 4Ls parked on avenue Mohamed V. They must have been delighted to finally be able to enjoy a quiet break in the sunshine, after having suffered from the cold at certain points along the route (notably a high plateau before Middelt).
In the end, the eco-challenge was not registered
We didn’t say anything about it at the time, because Nicolas and Aurélie still had hope of sorting things out, but Deloitte rejected their application for the eco-challenge. Why was this? Because at the time, Kokopelli seeds were banned from sale in France, and Deloitte probably didn’t want its name to be associated with an association that was making the headlines for having lost a court case linked to this issue. Despite Nicolas’s best efforts, explaining that the sale of these seeds was perfectly legal in Africa (which, in fact, was not the case in Morocco), and above all that it was only a donation, and proposing not to mention Kokopelli at all… Deloitte simply played dead, without replying, and without validating a project that was nonetheless perfectly ecological – and which, I believe, would pass without a problem today.
It’s all the more absurd because Nicolas and Aurélie had been referred to Kokopelli by Pierre Rahbi, who has been present in Morocco since the mid-2000s, with three projects in Meknes, Taroudant and Dar Bouazza.
What happened to the seeds?
Out of all the packets, I kept 4 or 5, which were sent to the Mezgarne Oasis, which we were managing at the time. Out of the 4 or 5 packets, I kept around ten seeds of each type, which I planted in flower pots in Ouarzazate. The rest went to Sawadi, where Catherine and Philippe put them to good use. The plants at Mezgarne died one summer when the well became blocked and wasn’t repaired quickly enough. The gardener didn’t see the point of watering these rather strange plants. As for my flower pots, they followed me all the way to El Jadida, and they suffered enormously when I moved to Casablanca.
In my eyes, a failure
This attempt confirmed what I thought about the so-called humanitarian and encounter aspect of the rally. That real encounters take time, which is incompatible with a rally. That humanitarianism without encounters is dehumanising. Today I have an even more negative view of this grand show of communication and staging of a generosity that is undoubtedly real for a certain number of participants, but exploited in the service of a commercial organisation.
And if you haven’t noticed, after finishing his studies, Nicolas set off on an eighteen-month long trip, with a rucksack and hiking boots…
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