Sharjah24 – AFP: To earn a living, rose pickers in Morocco's Atlas Mountains must wake up from the crack of dawn to collect flowers before the sunshine damages the shocking pink petals -- eventually distilled into precious oil costing once processed $18,000 per kilo.

The heady aroma of the Rosa Damascena, a variety introduced in the days of the caravan trade, perfumes hedges and fields irrigated by two wadis between the mountains and the Sahara desert.

Commenting on this, Izza Ait Ammi Mouh, rose picker said, "We arrive in the rose field at five in the morning and work until 11 am, sometimes more, depending on the harvest. I feed a family of five people, my children are young, they go to school."

Najad Hassad, manager of the Rosamgoun cooperative distillery pointed out,  "Kelaat Mgouna is known by its roses and their by-products. The origin of its roses comes from Damascus (Syria). Here it is called the rose of Damascus, or Damascena. The roses have found a good climate in Kelaat Mgouna, which helps the people here to distill (roses) in May."

"The oil of the rose is the most essential because it is very expensive in the international market, it is sold for 160,000 and 170,000 Moroccan dirham per litre (between 16,000-17,000 euros/litre) and we need five tons of roses to produce a litre of rose oil. So the rose here is known by its oil and rose water, and of course by its perfume," Nouredine Maalikoum, owner of a rose field added.

He concluded, "We create many initiatives here such as the enhancement of the product and its transformation in order to conquer the national and international market, to create employment for rural women and  youths and to develop the local and national economy."