Old Afghan men looking to soothe their aching joints or enrich their rice dishes stand around a tiny shop where they are lulled by a camel’s steady steps as sesame oil flows into a plastic bucket.
The traditional industry in northern Afghanistan is the domain of ethnic Turkmen, although its origins are unclear.
The sesame seeds are pressed not by hand, but by camel power to extract their precious oil.
Photo: AFP
Two of the animals take turns every couple of hours walking around in circles in the cramped space, a pack on their shoulders supporting a mast that drives the wooden press, a patch covering one eye to narrow their gaze.
Chari Amini has taken over the business started by his father and his 12-year-old son is already helping him as he prepares to become the next generation of sesame oil producers.
Amini buys sesame at the local market, which is grown between rows of wheat, hashish and poppies in the fertile soil of Balkh Province, which borders Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
If the seeds are of good quality, 1kg of sesame can produce half a liter of oil.
“We are about 35 producers in Mazar-i-Sharif, all Turkmen, and we all know each other,” Amini said, his bald head covered with a turban, referring to the capital of Balkh. “We are honest — it’s the key to business.”
“We never stopped during the wars,” he added.
Amini also presses sesame for farmers who bring their harvest to him, charging 100 Afghanis (US$1.44) per ser, a traditional unit of weight that is equal to 7kg.
Dark chunks of residue are collected and used as fuel in homes.
This modest trade brings Amini 20,000 Afghanis per month — not as lucrative as opium poppy used to produce heroin, but better than the income of a soldier. And it is enough to support his five children.
His shop is one of several facing a wide road in Mazar-i-Sharif, the front entirely open to customers.
Every two hours, his employee, Alokozai, pours 11kg of seeds into the press and takes the reins of the camel to guide him around the circle.
Alokozai, surprised by the question, said he never considered doing anything else with his life.
Each camel works for 10 hours per day. Amini keeps the animals for 18 months and then resells them “for a profit” once they are muscular.
About 300,000 liters of sesame oil are produced using the traditional method each year in Balkh, said Zabihullah Zubin, a director at the Balkh Department of Agriculture.
That provides a livelihood for about 50 producers
About 300 farmers produce sesame, but they prefer to sell on the regional market for a higher price — 120 Afghanis per kilogram against 90 Afghanis in the Mazar-i-Sharif bazaar, Zubin said.
This method of producing sesame oil is competing with more efficient industrial presses, of which Mazar-i-Sharif has three.
“They have the food technology, they know how to process, to clean the seeds, do the packaging... The small manual production would need investment and technical support” to access the overseas market, Zubin said.
Joseph Nezam, an Afghan-French businessman, is trying to develop local sesame oil production with the support of the US Agency for International Development so they can sell directly to markets abroad.
“Afghanistan has a very good quality sesame, but people prefer to sell to neighboring countries that serve as an intermediary to the international market, and help them to produce at European standards,” Nezam said.
Old customers of Amini swear that the camel-pressed sesame oil they use to flavor kabuli palaw, a traditional northern Afghan rice dish, is “totally organic, healthier and sweeter” than industrial presses that “burn” seeds by crushing them.
“It’s better than any tablet or medicine,” said Hajji Abdul Ghani Rahmani, a traditional doctor who stops by Amini’s shop to stock up on sesame oil to use at his clinic.
“You can use it and feel better very soon,” he added, as he massaged the knee and leg of an older man sitting inside the shop.
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