Prioritise regenerative resources, Team up to create joint value, Design for the future
5Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
11Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Long term use of synthetic fertilisers and insecticides on farms has created both plant-level resistance as well as a degradation at soil, farm and ecosystem levels. Viable organic alternatives have been developed which are specific to both the crops and the ecosystems in which they are to be deployed. If the price point is accessible, African farmers have the opportunity to replace these nonsustainable chemicals products with more effective, crop-specific organic products.
Young entrepreneurs Urbain Amoussou, a Togolais micro- biologist and Global Biotek founder, joined forces with Beninois sustainable agriculture specialist and ABC Grower creator, Chabi Bienvenu Adje, to launch the Biotri-ABC Grower project. Biotri-ABC Grower combines the production of organic fertiliser and biopesticide to boost crop yields and soil health while creating more sustainable livelihoods for women farmers. They tested several BIOTRI-ABC grower products in ‘conventional’ agriculture and in no-soil agricultural contexts and are now trialling them on three demonstration farms across Togo and Benin.
Their plan is to be incorporated into government-sponsored promotion and supply of agricultural inputs.
Global Biotek uses their products on three demonstration farms, where participants receive training to run their own farms using their skills and knowledge in biofertilisers and biopesticides. Their farm in Aneho, Togo, will employ 100 women by the end of 2021. The organic inputs used on demonstration farms are a combination of Chabi’s fertilisers, using minerals extracted from weeds, and Urbain’s biopesticide liquide formula, made up of microbes which increase nutrient absorption and prevent pests and disease.
To date they have created 19 types of fertiliser, and their products are exceptionally economical: it only takes 10 to 15 litres of Global Biotek’s products for a hectare of cultivation from seed to harvest.