“Hardship and Hope in Shubra Baloula”
Jasmine Harvest Season 2023
Shubra Baloula Al-Sakhawiyya, also known as “Al-Yasmine” Village, is a small village located in the Gharbia Governorate in Egypt. It is famous for being one of the world's top producers of jasmine.
Jasmine is a perennial tree that produces new flowers every day. The tree has delicate flowers and is one of the perennial trees, as it lives in the ground for a period of up to thirty years, and sheds its flowers for six months of the year.
As soon as the middle of the night reaches, the farmers place the lamps over their heads, and begin the process of collecting jasmine flowers, which exude their scent kilometers away from the village. The collection process continues from midnight until eight in the morning of the next day.
According to statistics from the International Federation of Oils and Fragrances Trade (IFEAT) for the year 2015, Egypt and India are the main producers of about 95% of the world’s aromatic jasmine paste. In Egypt, more than 90% of jasmine farms are located in Gharbia Governorate, in the cities of Qatour and Basyoun and the village of Shubra Baloula, where most of them are concentrated.
On a narrow dirt road surrounded by green jasmine fields dotted with white flowers, jasmine farmers and collectors in Shubra Baloula gather early in the morning with transport carts loaded with cages of jasmine flowers in front of the doors of the “Fakhry Aromatic Oils” factory, which receives most of the governorate’s production.
Fakhry is considered “the first factory for essential oils established in Egypt.” Its owner, Ahmed Fakhry, was the first to introduce the jasmine tree to Egypt in the sixties, and brought it from the city of Grasse (located on the Mediterranean coast and known for growing flowers and plants used in the perfume industry) in France, where he was studying .
The factory extracts the aromatic paste from the flowers in addition to raw jasmine oil.
Jasmine is a water-intensive crop, as “an acre is irrigated three times a month,” and an acre consumes between 450 and 500 cubic meters of water at a time.
Jasmine is only collected by hand, which requires a great effort from the workers who carry out the picking.
Studies indicate that the average production per person per day from collecting is between 2 and 5 kilograms of jasmine flowers... Nearly 100 percent of Egypt’s production is exported. Covid-19 greatly had affected the export process and witnessed a significant decline during 2020, then the decline rate increased to reach 60% in 2023.
Most of the people of Shubra Baloula work in the cultivation and collection of aromatic plants, most notably jasmine, as well as orange, and basil.
About 50,000 families live from the jasmine farms in Gharbia until 2020. Then, on the other hand, the cultivation and collection of jasmine began to shrink due to the ongoing suffering of farmers and their owners.
A kilogram is about 6,000 flowers. This means that for 45 pounds, a worker needs to collect a large area of land, Which means a tremendous muscular and physical effort.
A ton of jasmine is about 6 million flowers, and jasmine oil is used in many industries, most notably the perfume industry, and then it is included in a large segment of cosmetics, some types of detergents, and medicines related to the field of psychiatry and aromatherapy.
The dark side is not only represented by the injustice and misery that workers who collect jasmine experience six months of every year but also represented by many side effects and harm that they suffer. Exposure to large amounts of dew during the collection process leads to bone problems and diseases such as arthritis, osteoarthritis, and rheumatism. Direct and continuous exposure to the smell of jasmine causes respiratory irritation and long-term damage to the nervous system.
