Please consult the Festival Schedule and the Events page on this website. Remember that Harvest Festival Marrakech is a dynamic experience: new community members, events and partners will be revealed throughout the sixteen days, from 15 – 31 October, on our social media and website. Participants in events are invited to join as Harvest Festival Marrakech members and share their profile on our community page. Pop-up restaurants, tastings and workshops will be repeated by popular demand. Participation and interaction will generate new ideas for events and happenings that can be organised spontaneously. Stay tuned to @harvestmarrakech on Facebook and @harvest_marrakech on Instagram to ensure you are fully informed, day-by-day.

Harvest Festival Marrakech is a multi-sited event: it happens in art galleries, hotels, restaurants, retail stores and other spaces. Please consult the map on this website for specific information: you will find partners across Marrakech, with differently coloured icons for Activities, Art & Culture, Gastronomy and Shopping.

One of the goals of Harvest Festival is to promote the purchase and use of local cosmetic, craft and culinary products, along with other goods and services, that sustain livelihoods while contributing to healthy lifestyles. You will be able to find these products on sale at a store recently launched by one of our partners, MBLA, next to Café Malizia. If you prefer to buy directly from rural cooperatives and other local producers, stay tuned to @harvestmarrakech on Facebook and @harvest_marrakech on Instagram to ensure you are informed when the High Atlas Food Market will be organised.

Harvest Festival promotes the exchange of goods and services between people who share a commitment to producing and consuming sustainable cosmetic, craft and culinary products. It seeks to connect the rural cultural landscapes and urban areas, sustaining livelihoods while contributing to healthy lifestyles. Harvest Festival is also a platform for exploring the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to a more equitable, just and regenerative world by taking action locally. It consolidates and strengthens a community that is building a nascent green economy that promotes low carbon outputs, resource efficiency and social inclusiveness.

Harvest Festival is motivating a collective of partners from diverse sectors to pursue their efforts to (1) inform the general public about biodiversity-friendly local products that support community livelihoods; (2) support institutional efforts to establish certification and labelling of unique regional products that support local livelihoods; (3) develop an online marketplace to promote goods and services derived from biological resources that are equitably traded, safe and sustainably harvested; (4) assist associations and cooperatives to directly trade their cosmetic, craft and culinary products, benefitting producers and consumers alike; (5) design agricultural, culinary and ecological tourism circuits that encourage small group visits, allow communities to represent their own biocultural diversity, and deliver direct benefits to people who are stewards of regenerative agriculture, ecology and economy; and (6) launch apprenticeship and educational opportunities to build awareness and skills for beekeeping, organic agriculture, product development, marketing and other elements of a vibrant regional economy.

There is no general ticket for the Autumn edition of Harvest Festival Marrakech. Please check with specific partners for the price of meals, products, tours, workshops and other goods and services they offer. Some events – like concerts, exhibitions, film screenings, roundtables and tastings – will be free of charge and open to the general public.

Harvest Festival is as child friendly as Marrakech itself. It provides an excellent opportunity for young people to discover new foods, ideas and innovations. Keep in mind that some partners, especially galleries and restaurants, may have specific policies that restrict access for children, especially if unaccompanied or unsupervised.

Harvest Festival Marrakech community members play an important role in making the event a success. They embrace the basic premise that we can transition to a more equitable, just and regenerative world by taking action locally. They reach out to potential partners, encouraging them to join the movement. They communicate with their colleagues and friends to ensure they know about the overall event and specific happenings. They participate in Festival exhibitions, pop-ups, roundtables and workshops, and bring along their friends. If you would like to become a community member, please send a short (50-100 word) text to info@marrakechfestivals.org – in Arabic, English or French – that expresses who you are and what you do for agroecology, biodiversity, culture, gastronomy or landscape management in the Marrakech-Safi region.

Please see the directory for a full list of partner art galleries, cafés, caterers, cultural institutes, co-working spaces, delicatessens, foundations, hotels, incubators, restaurants, retailers and riads. They all commit to developing special offerings – a new dish or menu, exhibition, film screening, marketplace, pop-up restaurant, product line or roundtable – that raise awareness of local goods and services. Partners pay no sponsorship fees, receive no subsidies for their participation and are not expected to offer discounts for customers. They all share the common goal of regenerating a local vibrant economy based on equitable, ethical and ecological exchange for the common good. Remember that more Harvest Festival Marrakech partners will be added during and after each edition. 

Yes, any establishment that contributes to the transition to a more equitable, just and regenerative world by taking action locally may become a partner. This includes art galleries, cafés, caterers, cultural institutes, co-working spaces, delicatessens, foundations, hotels, incubators, restaurants, retailers and riads. During each edition of Harvest Festival Marrakech, our partners launch something special and unique to celebrate local agroecology, biodiversity, culture or gastronomy, in part by incorporating local culinary, craft and cosmetic products in what they offer to the public. They communicate their participation in the Festival through social media and word-of-mouth, drawing attention to what they are featuring as well as to the broader goal of ensuring that our local economy and food system work for the common good. If you would like to propose a new partner, please send your request to info@marrakechfestivals.org.

We welcome journalists who wish to learn more about Harvest Festival Marrakech and raise awareness about its activities, objectives and partners. Specific requests sent to info@marrakechfestivals.org will be shared with the Harvest Festival communication team to arrange visits to local cooperatives, interviews with members of the Harvest Festival community and tours of partner establishments in Marrakech.

A collective of enthusiastic and concerned individuals gathered to create Harvest Festival. You can discover them on our community page and read about the role they are playing in transitioning to a more equitable, just and regenerative world by taking action locally. Global Diversity Foundation, an international non-profit organisation, developed the Harvest Festival concept and worked with the Moroccan Biodiversity and Livelihoods Organisation, a Moroccan NGO, in addition to many other partners to develop specific elements of the inaugural Autumn 2021 edition of Harvest Festival Marrakech.

Harvest Festival Marrakech is organised without financial sponsorship or ownership by any entity or individual. Every community member, event and partner is self-supporting, and each is responsible for designing its own participation in the celebration. The success of Harvest Festival depends on dozens of establishments and volunteers that provide in-kind support. Two institutions provided seed funding to cover the core costs of communicating, designing and organising Harvest Festival and especially its inaugural Autumn 2021 edition: the Darwin Initiative, a UK government grants scheme that helps to protect biodiversity and the natural environment through locally based projects worldwide, and the Swiss-based MAVA Foundation, which supports conservation to benefit people and nature.

Our primary hashtag is #harvestfestival. Feel free to use other ones of yours, and as you participate in the Festival and interact with others, please tag the community members, events and partners that inspire you.

Just like the Harvest Festival, the reaping of crops continues all year long. The agricultural calendar is linked to the wonderful Mediterranean climate of this region of Morocco, with mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Citrus fruits are picked from late winter through spring and early summer, olives are gathered in the autumn, diverse vegetable crops thrive throughout the year, and each cereal – barley, maize, millet and wheat – has its own season.

Harvest Festival – with its focus on agroecology, biodiversity, culture, gastronomy and landscapes – is continuous. It has its origins in the emergence of culture hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the birth of agriculture more than ten thousand years ago. It will continue as long as people cultivate their minds and the land. Harvest Festival Marrakech has delimited editions: Autumn, from 15 – 31 October, is centred around World Food Day (16 October); Spring, from 15 – 31 May, is around the International Day for Biological Diversity (22 May); and Yennayer, 12 – 14 January, celebrating the first day of the Amazigh agricultural calendar.

Cooperatives in the High Atlas region produce a wide range of high-quality certified local products, but they face numerous challenges in promoting and selling their goods. High Atlas Food Market was created in order to address this challenge, with the first edition held in May 2021 to assist local cooperatives in commercializing their products in urban areas, as well as how to expand their clientele during and after Covid-19.

Following the success of the first edition, the Moroccan Biodiversity & Livelihoods Association (MBLA), in collaboration with the Global Diversity Foundation (GDF), organises High Atlas Food Markets as part of the Harvest Festival to promote biodiversity-friendly local products as well as to remind attendees of the importance of knowing where their food comes from and how it is produced, prepared and distributed. Stay tuned to our website and social media to be informed of the time and date the High Atlas Food Market will be held.

From High Atlas producers to Marrakech’s urban consumers, the market will offer a diverse range of high-quality products at reasonable prices. We hope that this initiative will eventually spark a conversation and raise awareness about the importance of conscious food choices for good health, as well as how local cooperative products can serve as an alternative to highly processed and unsafe food products.

In the High Atlas Markets that will be organised throughout the year, you will be able to choose from a wide range of products from cooperatives of the regions of Al-Haouz, Azilal, and Demnate.

We display products from many High Atlas cooperatives that are already established with a diverse range of products and are enthusiastic about participating in the Market and the Harvest Festival. A set of criteria was developed to evaluate the cooperatives, and we are pleased to inform you that all cooperatives are in accordance with Morocco’s cooperatives law, “Law n° 112-12.” Furthermore, they engage in traditional land-use practices and modes of production that promote biodiversity. Their work also contributes to the creation of job opportunities and inclusive initiatives for their community.