Morocco launches study to improve hide quality
24/03/2010
The Moroccan government wants to improve the performance of the leather industry there by around 20% and is carrying out a study into livestock management and slaughter practices in an attempt to improve the conditions of the hides and skins tanners in the North African country get to work with.
Leather is one of a series of sectors of the economy that the government has identified as transformation industries, ones that transform raw materials into finished or semi-finished products, and which it believes can make an important contribution to improving Morocco's economy.
At the moment, official sources describe leather as a $300 million industry in Morocco, which means it is contributing only 1% of the combined output of the transformation industries. Identifying the cause of defects and improving the quality of domestic hides and skins will be an important way of boosting this contribution, the government believes.
The team of scientits carrying out the study has already identified a number of important factors in the raw material supply chain of the Moroccan leather industry that are affecting the quality of hides and skins, and, therefore, of the finished leather that Morocco's tanneries are able to produce.
"There are defects that are occurring as a result of the way animals are being reared," said the president of the Moroccan Leather Industries Federation (Fedic), Jamal Bahhar. He offers skin damage caused by warble fly as an example. A vaccination programme could eradicate this, he pointed out.
Other problems occur during slaughter, Mr Bahhar said. Hides and skins are being affected by infections including scabies because of poor handling in abattoirs, he claimed, and he said that around the time of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, when slaughter numbers rise dramatically, a lack of professionalism in Morocco's abattoirs meant the country was losing around 5 million sheepskins every year at the time of that one festival.
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