‘Greening’ White Gold: Co-Creating Climate-Friendly Practices through Regenerative Agriculture among Togo Cotton Farming Communities
- Project status
- Ongoing
- Departments
- International
Togo, a Least Developed Country, faces multiple challenges for its socio-economic growth due to global climate crises. Agriculture is the main stay of Togo’s economy. Within agriculture, cotton production is unduly affected by climate challenges. Hence, Regenerative Agriculture (RA) is a promising approach to mitigate climate change effects, empowering farmers, its indigenous communities, and women producers. There is a compelling need to understand how RA can be implemented through responsible supply chain practices in selected cotton producing regions. By adopting a co-production framework, the project seeks to enhance climate resilience and social outcomes to deliver evidence-based policies for sustainable cotton production. Based on an interdisciplinary approach between business, sociology and agribusiness, built through established partnerships with key players in Togo's agribusiness supply chain and cotton farming communities, the project will provide better understanding of cotton producers' intersectional experiences whilst developing landscape-scale RA systems, and a robust policy lab for climate mitigation.
Research Team: Dr Debashree De, Essex Business School; Dr Shoba Arun, Essex Business School; Dr. Malesios Chrysovalantis, Agricultural University of Athens; Ms. Julie Green, Olam Agri-NSCT; Professor Jean M. SOGBEDJI, University of Lome; Professor Arun Thankom, Essex Business School