In a small village deep in the Moroccan mountains, a woman sits beside a stack of handwoven rugs, each stitched with teachings passed down from one generation to the next. They are beautiful. Unfortunately, no one will get to witness their beauty or the hard work that she’d put into creating the intricate rug that has Moroccan history and traditions woven between wool and thread. Though this is not for lack of effort on her part, it’s due to the lack of access.

The markets are too far away, the middleman takes too much money— not even covering the cost of the materials necessary for the intricately woven pieces—and the world beyond her village has no knowledge of her existence or the work that she does. Sadly, this is not simply a fictional story, it’s the reality of many Moroccan farming families and artisans whose hours spent toiling end up in a storage room instead of in homes, and whose harvests enrich big corporations instead of the communities. But what if the value of their labor was retained by those communities? What if the solution was not charity, but empowerment that could help alleviate the state of poverty for the long term?

Value-added is defined as “the amount by which the value of an article is increased at each stage of its production, exclusive of initial costs”, which explains why Moroccans often sell their crops or products without benefiting from the true value of their labor. Implementing programs that help these cooperatives and farmers learn how to process package, and market their products to people not only in their villages but also in urban areas and to tourists can help with enriching the communities in rural areas by reviving the economy and increasing the money in circulation which can help with the quality of living.

First, farmers make up 43% of employment, and 78% of those farmers are in rural areas. A percentage of those farmers plant produce that is harvested and sold at a low price to other people in the villages. But to ensure that the crops do not go bad, a large portion of the harvest is sold off to corporations that store these crops and sell them at a later time for a high markup. Providing farmers with mills, dryers, cold storage, and transport can help them process or store their harvests and retain the value that is handed off to intermediaries. In fact, 85% of profits made go to these intermediates, and providing farmers with the knowledge and equipment can help them retain all the profits that are derived from their hard work in the fields.

Secondly, for the women in cooperatives— who spend months toiling on products just for them to end up in storage— marketing training needs to be implemented to help them profit. Data collected by the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) has shown that a majority of cooperatives that request or need training do so in marketing to help attract customers to their business. HAF as well as other organizations have done admirable work in helping assist those cooperatives in learning how to properly market themselves, but more cooperatives need this training. For example, a cooperative could end up selling some of its inventory, but it doesn’t reach the goal required for the women in the cooperative to sustain themselves without having to secure second jobs.

The issue stopping them from reaching the customer is their inability to do so, and the only way that they can is through intermediaries that collect the majority of the profits and barely offer the cooperative a cut that covers the cost of materials—that's if they cover all the costs of labor. Providing these women with the groundwork to reach a wider audience is necessary for the success of a majority of cooperatives around Morocco.

Lastly, for farmers, value-added agriculture— turning raw olives into oil, or argan kernels into cosmetic products— can help enrich a majority of olive and argan farmers. The same problems that affect the cooperative and produce farmers also affect farmers who typically sell those crops in their raw form. The lack of equipment and marketing skills. Providing them with both will be costly, but in the long run, it will help generate the revenues necessary to bring those farmers out of poverty by benefiting from the crops they grow.

In conclusion, the woman sitting by her unsold rugs isn’t just a symbol, it’s a call to action. Her story and those of countless Moroccan farmers and artisans alike show that talent and hard work aren’t enough when systems are built to favor intermediaries and corporations. To help tap into the potential that is benefited from by said intermediaries and redirect it towards the Moroccan farmers and artists it’s important to provide them with the necessities to retain value from processing. Investing in value-added processing, marketing training, and providing support can help structure a future when Moroccans no longer work just to survive, but to thrive.

To break the cycle of poverty and exploitation, we must invest in the tools and training that would allow Morocco's rural population to own every step of the process.

Ethaar Gwary is a student at the University of Virginia and an Intern at the High Atlas Foundation in Marrakech, Morocco.