While luxury perfumes sell for up to $500 a bottle in global markets, the Ethiopian laborers who hand-harvest the myrrh resin, a key ingredient, receive as little as $3.50 per kilogram, facing intensified precarity as a historic drought threatens their livelihoods and the very trees they depend on. This stark disparity underscores the systematic extraction of value from the Horn of Africa's natural resources and its working communities, channeled into the coffers of transnational corporations.
The myrrh resin, a staple in beauty, health, and religious practices since ancient Egypt, is hand-harvested in Ethiopia’s Somali region. Despite the labor-intensive nature of this work, which raises the market price of the resin, those performing the work see "little of the profit." The opaque supply chain ensures that the vast majority of the surplus value generated from this labor is siphoned off by middlemen and ultimately by the global luxury brands. Ethiopia, a major source of myrrh, collects no taxes on these goods, further demonstrating the state's failure to capture wealth for its populace or regulate the exploitative market.
Surplus Extraction Fuels Luxury Market
The resin from eastern Ethiopia feeds global markets, appearing in perfumes marketed by fashion brands such as Tom Ford, Comme des Garcons, and Jo Malone. These brands retail bottles for as much as $500, a price point that stands in stark contrast to the $3.50 to $10 per kilogram paid to the harvesters. This mechanism of surplus extraction ensures that the wealth generated from the land and labor of the Somali region is concentrated upward, enriching distant corporations and their shareholders. The growing global interest in natural remedies also fuels curiosity about myrrh’s other potential uses, signaling further commodification pressures on this resource.
Researchers supported by the American Herbal Products Association and Born Global visited the region earlier this year. Their stated aim was to assess the situation and "see whether harvesters could get more direct profits instead of middlemen." This approach, focused on marginal adjustments within the existing market framework, implicitly accepts the fundamental structure of global capital's demand for luxury goods while seeking to slightly improve the terms of exploitation for the primary producers.
Climate Crisis Deepens Labor's Precarity
The myrrh-producing trees are under severe threat from water scarcity linked to a historic drought in the Horn of Africa. The annual rains have been failing over the past several years, interrupted in 2023 by devastating flooding. Experts attribute these changes to the shifting climate. This environmental crisis directly impacts the ability of adult trees to produce resin and significantly reduces the survival rate of young trees. Local elder Mohamed Osman Miyir reported, "Unfortunately, many seedlings are uprooted by children who graze their livestock nearby, and the animals often eat the buds of the young trees," expressing deep worry "about the declining population of myrrh trees."
The drought has intensified the daily struggle for survival for local communities. Villagers dedicate their days to hauling water for themselves and their livestock. Herders traverse parched, cracked earth for distances up to 200 kilometers to reach Sanqotor village, which possesses a rare well. Local headman Ali Mohamed observed, "Guests water animals first, then the villagers," highlighting the desperate competition for basic resources. The poorest residents of the region are entirely dependent on tree resin like myrrh for their survival, making the ecological and economic threats existential.
Limited Reforms Amidst Systemic Failure
The traditional harvesting methods, which involve collecting resin from naturally occurring wounds rather than making intentional cuts, are described by expert Anjanette DeCarlo as being "in balance and protects trees." She stated, "It should be celebrated." This traditional, sustainable practice is now jeopardized by the pressures of a global market that demands constant supply, coupled with the escalating climate crisis. The researchers expressed concern that without adequate rain, more young trees will fail, and eventually, even adult trees will die.
Abdinasir Abdikadir Aweys, a senior researcher with the Somali Regional Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Research Institute and a member of the research team, noted that residents "expressed hope that a direct market would enable them to secure better prices, ensuring sustainable livelihoods." This hope for a "direct market" represents a desire for a slightly less exploitative arrangement within the existing capitalist framework, rather than a challenge to the system that generates such profound inequalities between luxury consumers and the primary producers. The current system, which allows for the systematic underpayment of labor and the depletion of collective resources for private profit, continues to function as designed.