Tropentag, September 11 - 13, 2024, Vienna "Explore opportunities... for managing natural resources and a better life for all"

Sustainability of sesame farm households supported by Orge NGO in the Savanes region of Togo

¹University of Kara, Lab. of Economics and Management Sciences, Togo
²Ministry of Agriculture, Research and Vulgarisation, Togo

Abstract

A sustainable farm management fulfils the three dimensions of sustainability, namely the environmental, economic, and social dimension. However, despite the availability of social and technological innovations, sustainability is yet to be reached. Under the hypothesis that the support of agricultural technicians and advisors could help meet this challenge, the Orge NGO is investing in supporting sesame production farm households in Togo. The objective of this research is to assess the sustainability of production systems in the sesame sector supported by the Orge NGO in the Savanes region of Togo. The data used for the analyses comes from a field survey of 111 sesame producers supported by the Orge NGO in five districts in the region. The analysis is based on the Deep Participatory Indicator-Based (DPIB) approach, which is based on the sustainable development goals paradigm. The results of the analysis indicate the environmental (78.63), economic (40.05) and social (45.50) sustainability scores, based on a scale of 100. This means that the considered sesame production systems are sustainable from an environmental point of view but not sustainable from an economic and social point of view. Thus, the key message drawn from the findings is that the current Orge accompaniments practices are insufficient to guarantee sesame farm households’ sustainability as promoted by the United Nations. The social unsustainability of the farms is explained by the poor performance recorded in terms of food security, quality of life and social involvement. As for economic unsustainability, it is the result of low availability of capital, low returns recorded and low technical efficiency. Thus, for sesame farms to move towards sustainable agricultural systems under the paradigm of sustainable development goals, training producers to use more profitable environmental-friendly practices and implementing strategies allowing better access to capital are important pillars.

This work is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Minodu project (FKZ 01LL2202A) in the funding line "Sustainable land management in sub-Saharan Africa: Improving livelihoods through local research".

Keywords: Deep participatory indicator-based approach, Savanes region of Togo, sustainability

Contact Address: Mikémina Pilo, University of Kara, Lab. of Economics and Management Sciences, Kara, Togo, e-mail: pilomikemina15gmail.com