Kpalime - Togo
Agroforestry
Implemented in the field by the UTTC (Togo Coffee and Cocoa Technical Unit) and the social enterprise Kinomé, the project aims to develop agroforestry among coffee and cocoa farmers in order to protect their crops and enable them to be more profitable in the long term.
In Togo, the forest covers 386,000 hectares, which represents 6.8% of the national area. Despite this already very low forest cover, the annual deforestation rate in Togo is 4.5%: this is one of the highest in the world. Expansion of agricultural land, logging, forest fires and the supply of wood for energy: this anthropogenic deforestation is reinforced by the country's demographic growth. In 20 years, coffee and cocoa plantations in Togo have lost a third of their production capacity. Although strongly encouraged by the Togolese government in the 1970s, they are now suffering from a lack of quality plants and ageing stands.
Forest and fruit species are planted in the coffee and cocoa plots. The trees will provide the necessary shade for the crops in a context of increased drought and will allow the decomposition of organic matter into humus, which will provide nutrients for the coffee and cocoa plants. They will also provide firewood for the villagers through pruning of branches every three years. At the same time, fruit trees are also planted to enable the producers to diversify their crops and diet by harvesting fruit and to obtain additional income from their sale. Each producer associated with the project also benefits from training provided by UTTC on good tree planting practices. At the same time, areas at risk of erosion, located on hillsides or along watercourses, are being reforested in order to restore the soil and the environmental functions of these ecosystems. Some of these plots will be used to develop future coffee and cocoa agroforests.
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