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Coffee for the Climate: Promoting Coffee Agroforestry

  • 2024 Winner

Group of Actions and Initiatives for Africa (GAIA)

Context

In Togo, green coffee production has increased significantly in recent years. The President of Togo has also expressed his desire to strengthen the sector, particularly to increase exports. The area sown with coffee (robusta at over 98%) is estimated at approximately 45,000 hectares spread across eight prefectures, exclusively in the Plateaux region and the Central region. This project aims to support the coffee sector in Togo using a resilient agroforestry model in the canton of Atigba (Danyi Prefecture).

COOP-CA-PAPD and the GAIA association have carried out several projects in partnership since 2004, in order to develop Sustainable Agriculture by taking into account major environmental principles in order to support its members and develop commercial relations between producers and consumers.

In 2023, consultations were carried out with coffee producer groups, allowing certain problems to be highlighted: the aging of plantations leading to a drop in coffee production, significant land degradation, the weakness of the qualitative selection process for green coffees, insufficient sorting and drying infrastructure and access to agricultural inputs, the lack of technical means, the difficulty in recruiting local labor and finally the fluctuation of prices on the green coffee market which does not guarantee the assurance of purchase prices.

Several advantages were also highlighted, such as the producers' desire to develop and improve their plantations, the availability of agricultural land, and the presence of numerous watercourses and water reserves in the Danyi prefecture.

It is in this context that the GAIA association and the COOP-CA-PAPD decided to carry out this project with 200 coffee producers.

  • Country: Togo
  • Location: Danyi Apéyémé
  • Sector of intervention:
    Agriculture, Food Sovereignty
  • La Guilde Endowment: €18,860
  • Project cost: €49,747
  • Project leader: Group of Actions and Initiatives for Africa
  • In partnership with: Cooperative with a Board of Directors of Agropastoral Producers of the Prefecture of Danyi (COOP-CA-PAPD)
Funder(s):
• La Guilde

Project objectives

Responding through the coffee sector to the intersecting challenges of climate change, population education and poverty, with a view to improving the living conditions and climate resilience of vulnerable populations in the Plateaux region

Activities

Promotion of Coffee Agroforestry:

  • identification and validation of different agroforestry models
  • organization of awareness raising and selection of producers
  • installation of a nursery
  • establishment of mobile teams to manage agroforestry projects which distribute nursery plants to planting sites
  • installation of beehives to increase biodiversity and promote higher yields

 

Strengthening the skills of agroforestry coffee producers:

  • training producers in coffee agroforestry (spacing, maintenance, etc.)
  • training in quality harvesting techniques
  • development of partnerships with stakeholders in the coffee industry
  • training in modern agricultural techniques

 

Promoting North/South exchanges to support practices that are more resilient to climate change

  • organization of an exchange mission with ISSAT in Redon, with student participation in agroecology activities
  • organization of testimony sessions and debate evenings, and a restitution of the mission

Direct beneficiaries

200 small producers working on small areas (less than 2 hectares) and practicing food self-sufficiency agriculture, and some cash and off-season crops. These producers have small coffee productions often accompanied by cocoa plantations.

Through its Microprojects division, the La Guilde association, in partnership with the French Development Agency, supports the implementation of microprojects in the service of sustainable development internationally.