| Many people told Mohammed
Benzit, President of Domaines Agricole Benzit, that
he was crazy to even think of trying to grow peaches
in the arid climate of Morocco. Benzit, however, is
not a man to let small minds slow him down. He had
a dream, and taking their doubts as a personal challenge,
he set out to prove all of the naysayers wrong.
Benzit’s love of all things American began when
he traveled to the United States at the age of 26
to study agriculture at the University of California-Davis
(UCD), considered to be the nation’s premier
agricultural school, in the state’s fertile Central
Valley. During his tenure at UCD he traveled the length
and breadth of California’s prime agricultural
zones, through the San Joaquin Valley, from Bakersfield
through Sacramento to Stockton, and into the Imperial
Valley east of San Diego, soaking up the latest scientific
techniques in the agricultural field. Benzit was driven
by his dream to bring this expertise home to Morocco.
Benzit’s ability to seize upon opportunities
overlooked by others has made Domaines Agricoles Benzit,
founded in 1985, an unprecedented success story. In
the early 1980s, he realized that from the end of
March until the middle of May, Europe was devoid of
fresh peaches and nectarines. He soon worked out a
plan fill this niche in the market.
While attending an agricultural conference at Clemson
University during the mid-1980s, Benzit met Dr. Wayne
Sherman, head of the Horticulture Science Department
at the University of Florida at Gainesville. This
would prove to be the most important professional
relationship of Benzit’s life. Each of Domaines
Agricoles Benzit’s fruit varieties is the product
of Dr. Sherman’s research laboratory. Every year
since that time, Benzit has traveled to Florida to
review the latest research, and quite often, to sign
contracts on additional varieties. Benzit held up
the two decade partnership enjoyed between Domaines
Agricoles Benzit and the University of Florida at
Gainesville as a model of how an American institution
can contribute to significant progress in a developing
country at the most minimal of costs. It is a concept
he would like to see repeated in Morocco.
Benzit planted the first peach, avocado and citrus
trees in 1983. Harvesting of peaches began in 1987,
followed by avocados and citrus in 1989. From its
humble beginning, Domaines Agricole Benzit has become
the single largest fruit exporter in Morocco.
Domaines Agricole Benzit currently exports 80% of
its product, principally to the United Kingdom, Spain,
Italy and France. The remaining 20% is sold to local
distributors for domestic consumption. The company
annually harvests 1,000 tons of citrus, 700 tons of
peaches and nectarines, 700 tons of apples, and 200
tons of avocados.
The origin of most of the company’s output is
a 600 acre plot near Taroudant, where all varieties
save for nectarines are grown. The operation is located
70 miles northeast of the Atlantic coast resort town
of Agadir. In addition, 80 acres of export-only nectarines
are grown 10 miles to the east of Marrakech. Benzit
plans to spend $1 million on an additional 100 acres,
primarily in Taroudant, in the near future.
The Taroudant harvest begins around March 20 every
year and lasts until the end of April, while the nectarines
near Marrakech are harvested during a two week period
from around April 20 until May 5. Utilizing an efficient
logistics system, the fruit makes its way from Morocco
to Spain in 36 hours, to Italy in 48 hours, and to
the stores of central London in four days.
Domaines Agricole Benzit enjoys close to complete
market dominance during this period of time. Benzit
explained that while his produce shares some shelf
space with a negligible amount of fruit from southern
Spain after April 20, “I consider I have no competition.”
The completion of the Tangier deepwater port and free
trade zone in 2008 will present new opportunities
for Benzit. He expects that the completion of this
project will streamline the paperwork involved in
export operations, making the already short trip from
tree to supermarket even shorter. Access to state
of the art container services provided by the new
port has the potential to significantly expand Benzit’s
market potential, facilitating exports to lucrative
yet distant markets such as Canada and the United
States.
Benzit is very passionate about his country and its
future, and about what Morocco needs to accomplish
in order to bring its population out of the poverty
and backwardness that plague the Kingdom. He stressed
that the new government of Prime Minister Driss Jettou
has a prime opportunity to institute the needed political,
judicial, and economic reforms being pushed by His
Majesty King Mohammed VI. Benzit emphasized that His
Majesty is earnest in his desire to better the lot
of his subjects and that he has the support of both
the Moroccan business community and the public at
large. One of the chief obstacles to getting things
moving in the right direction is the Prime Minister’s
tug of war with Morocco’s entrenched French-style,
multi-layered civil service bureaucracy that adapts
to change at a glacial pace, if at all.
Benzit is confident that the major catalyst for maneuvering
Morocco into the 21st century is the successful completion
of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States.
In his view, the FTA will force Morocco to enact long
overdue business-friendly policies.
In addition, the FTA will make more U.S. companies
aware of the lucrative business opportunities available
in Morocco. He held up as an example Morocco’s
trading relationship with the European Union under
the Association Agreement signed on March 1, 2001.
The agreement was more dreaded than anticipated by
many Moroccan businessmen, according to Benzit. Many
made the erroneous assumption that it would only benefit
European companies planning to flood Morocco with
their products. To the relief of the business community
in Morocco, the Association Agreement actually provided
the Kingdom with a huge market in Europe for its products.
Benzit asserted the same would be true with the advent
of a U.S.-Morocco Free Trade Agreement, opening up
the vast American market to Moroccan goods.
He additionally underscored the need for the Moroccan
government to be more proactive in its encouragement
of small and medium- size businesses. Many Moroccan
banks exist in a climate that has traditionally refused
to lend money to budding entrepreneurs. When money
is lent, it is often at high interest rates. Because
of these conditions, the growth of small businesses
in Morocco has been significantly hindered.
In addition, installation of even the most basic business
services is problematic. Benzit explained that while
his company, which is a primary provider of employment
to the village of Taroudant, has extremely unreliable
telephone service, the residents of the nearby town
have no such problems. Benzit was adamant that this
type of bureaucratic neglect is a matter of the highest
importance to Domaines Agricole Benzit, which deals
with international clients on a daily basis and is
highly reliant upon real-time information that can
determine whether significant sums of money are made
or lost. Services in large cities such as Rabat and
Casablanca are in fact as good as any in Europe or
the United States, according to Benzit. Making the
decision to live or work outside of cities and towns
in Morocco effectively means condemning yourself to
living one hundred years in the past. This is a major
problem that must be addressed in order for the Kingdom
to make meaningful progress towards development.
He emphasized that while there are many things that
need to be done to make Morocco competitive in international
business, there are existing strengths as well. This
includes the prevalence of a strong work ethic, and
the willingness by many to adapt to Western ways of
doing business. Benzit stressed that even when the
inevitable problems occur, Moroccans do their best
to solve them. In addition, although the educational
system still needs a great deal of modernization and
improvement, it does provide a good, basic education
to its children, with English increasingly taught
and to children in earlier grade levels.
He noted the virtues of the American educational system
over that of the French, by providing the example
of his children. His son is a senior in the College
of Engineering at the University of Florida at Gainesville,
while his daughter is studying in France. Benzit explained
that his son’s American education, where individual
initiative is highly encouraged, will enable him to
be an effective problem-solver when he returns to
Morocco. In the long run, said Benzit, this will allow
him to outmaneuver those colleagues of his who studied
under the French system, which frowns upon critical
thought and independent initiative, and instead emphasizes
consensus at all costs.
Mr. Benzit stressed that he owed his business success
to the friendships he had made in the United States,
and to American technology. His philosophy on the
success of the developing world is that nations such
as Morocco need to see America as an indispensable
ally. Since America and the European Union are the
world’s business leaders, as he put it, “Moroccans
need to know that you either follow the lead of the
West, or you simply get left behind.”
He went on to say that the best prescription to overcome
the prejudice, mistrust and ignorance between the
West and the Arab and wider Muslim world is to continue
to foster the same sort of professional partnerships
among American, European and Moroccan companies that
have allowed Domaine Agricole Benzit to flourish.
In short, Mr. Benzit would like to hold up his company’s
success and the invaluable assistance he has received
from his American colleagues as a model for further
Moroccan-American business cooperation and partnership.
“Moroccans need to know that Americans are good
people and Americans need to know that Moroccans are
good people,” said Benzit.
Benzit’s love for the United States and all that
it has done for the Moroccan people was obvious when
he recounted that his 91 year old father, who has
never been to the United States, told him during the
1991 Persian Gulf War that the Arab world could not
afford to let America lose, as the whole region would
lose as well. This is the spirit that drives Mr. Benzit
in his relationship with Americans. He feels very
strongly that the Moroccan-American relationship has
lasted as long as it has because it is based upon
mutual respect and a shared set of values, underscoring
a shared vision of what the future could be. |
