Agree Culture

The obtainment of well-being is a constant aspiration of every human being. The farmers in the village Datcha in the north of Togo realized that this was only possible for them to achieve by working together.
So, in 2020 and in collaboration with our project, the cooperative Agree Culture was created, in the hope that it would enable them to succeed together in creating conditions favorable to the promotion and sustainable development of their farming methods in order to improve their income and create jobs.
With this cooperative, the members hope to find solutions to the problems they feel they are facing, such as a lack of organization, infrastructure and equipment and the lack of control over their activities.

The Concept

AGREE-CULTURE is the first of our cooperatives. We are hoping to establish many more such cooperatives and promote agricultural entrepreneurship, strengthen farming capacities and spread different agricultural techniques in order to diversify and extend the farmers work and increase their profit. The cooperatives will be constituted and managed according to seven cooperative principles: voluntary membership open to all, democratic power exercised by the members of the cooperative, the economic participation of every member, autonomy and independence, education, training and information, co-operation between organizations and voluntary commitment to the community.

With internal experience and external partners like ICAT or ENACTUS of the University of Cologne, the cooperatives will provide assistance in complicated tasks like accounting and supply infrastructures such as an organized storage and our innovative drying house. Another aim is to be able to offer services like support in harvesting and transportation.
With its program, the cooperative helps to reduce the dependency of the small farmers on the prices of the market that are often below the level needed to make a livelihood. It also allows them to either store their harvest until prices rise or sell it to the cooperative itself for fair conditions in order to obtain money they need for essentials like medicine or school utensils for their children. This way, we hope to foster economic independence and ensure well-being for all of the farmers in our cooperatives.