Tameka Peoples founded Seed2Shirt to return production to communities of color, ensuring every stage of the cotton value chain was rooted in restorative relationships to the land and the people.

tameka’S JOURNEY

Tameka is building a vertically integrated, organic cotton value chain to restore, heal, and empower communities of color from end to end. Working across the African continent, she is motivated by a need to return production to those that have traditionally been marginalized, exploited and extracted from. In turn, she sees an opportunity to establish restorative relationships not just to the land, but to the people too.

“When I started this journey, I read a book that was really powerful for me: 'The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism' by Edward E. Baptist. This book outlines how cotton was a backbone to America, and it has many stories of Black bodies and cotton woven through it.

Today, as a young Black woman, I have what I would call a Harriet Tubman love for the community that has been so exploited by capitalism. And I'm in this space where I'm talking about restoring us to a place in a value chain that was the cause of extraction from and the destruction of my people for centuries.

Sometimes we're completely disconnected from it, sometimes we have these visceral reactions to it, but every day we put on something that has cotton in it. So, my work for Seed2Shirt is about restoration, reclamation, the healing of us in this space, and our connection with this commodity.”

THE PROBLEMS TAMEKA IS TACKLING

A lack of representation of women in leadership positions. One of the first barriers that Tameka encountered was a cultural resistance to seeing women in positions of power. “58% of organic cotton producers here are women, but there is this natural, cultural propensity to not see women in leadership roles. It’s something I have experienced myself, and seen among our female producers too. They have a significantly limited voice for expressing their concerns and issues.” 

Declining soil health on smallholder organic cotton farms. Even among organic cotton farmers, yields have been decreasing over time. “Agriculture in general is the backbone and the livelihood of nations. However, we need to look at how it can be restorative and regenerative. When we saw the data, we found that the farmers were losing soil organic matter at a high percentage year on year. If the goal was to have higher yields, we needed to address what was happening with the soil. Heal the land, heal the people, and the results will fall in.” 

Poor access to tools and resources. There’s a difficulty in accessing tools and technology in the organic cotton sector in Burkina Faso compared to other major cotton producing countries. “The farmers in Burkina Faso are still, in most instances, picking the cotton by hand. There's a challenge in access to tools, resources, and mechanization for smallholder organic cotton farmers that we're looking to address." 

A lack of local cotton transformation facilities. Some estimates say that around 90% of cotton produced in Sub-Saharan African countries is exported. “We wanted to be part of the few who were making a very concerted effort to not extract that value, but to recycle the value within Africa. It’s important that countries, companies and brands look at how we can focus on regional transformation because if not, we're left to put together the different pieces.”

TAmeka’S SOLUTIONS

Tameka’s actions are rooted in social and environmental restoration. With Seed2Shirt, she goes beyond relying on third party standards, working in the space beyond compliance by actively supporting farmers and joining the dots between transformation facilities that align with her core values.

Partnering with the farmers on the ground. Tameka’s approach to actively supporting organic cotton farmers in Burkina Faso starts from a place of learning from those who are most affected. To do so, Seed2Shirt established a five-year partnership with the Union Nationale des Producteurs de Coton du Burkina (UNPCB). “While we wanted to support the organic farmers in Burkina Faso, we didn’t want to come in with a savior mentality. They have been farming cotton their entire lives. So, our goal was to partner with the organization of farmers to understand what the needs were and develop a model that could address them in a mutually beneficial way.”

Building a tailored Farmer Enrichment Program. Seed2Shirt’s Farmer Enrichment Program is the culmination of efforts centered around the empowerment of marginalized people, leading to the rebuilding of community and countering systems of inequity. It is built around three pillars: Farm Tools, which focuses on people and resources, Women Enrichment, which works with women and youth farmers to help counterbalance the setbacks they face, and Soil Science, which Seed2Shirt team of internal and local soil scientists to help farmers increase their farms soil organic matter. “We call it an ‘Enrichment’ program because we really wanted to hone in on the fact that this was about creating value in their lives.”

Connecting African cotton producers under a shared set of values. With the lack of local cotton transformation facilities in West Africa, Seed2Shirt has sought out partners across the continent that work in a way that is aligned with its core beliefs. It uses an organic, vertically integrated textile mill in Uganda and a carbon-neutral cut-make-trim facility in Kenya, placing an importance on keeping the value of the cotton within the African continent. “We wanted our choices to be integrity driven. It was about remaining people-focused and continuing to add value not only to our customers, but to the team that would make up the value chain of our final product.” 

Using finance for good. One characteristic element of Seed2Shirts’ business model as a manufacturing company is its dedication to reinvesting its profit into its purpose. “Our finances are for the good of the land and the people. We didn't want the earnings to just be earnings, capitalism, for capital’s sake. We wanted the capital and the earnings that come from Seed2Shirt to go back into the people and the lands. We turn pretty much every dollar back into growing our Farmer Enrichment Program and creating the partnerships that help us help others.” 

Increasing growth of the organic cotton sector in Burkina Faso. Even outside of the Seed2Shirt value chain, Tameka focuses on growing the organic cotton sector in Burkina Faso. “The idea of working only within our own value chain is myopic. We have the opportunity to encourage and even find ways to put the cotton from Burkina Faso into other value chains too. So, we became a GOTS certified Organic Cotton broker to create relationships between those who are looking for organic cotton, and our partners in Burkina Faso. We’re certainly the first Black woman-led organic cotton broker! And the weight and importance of this is not lost on me, with it comes great responsibility”

Building a new legacy for cotton in Africa. The last integral, defining part of the Seed2Shirt approach is its focus on legacy building for Black apparel manufacturing. It’s about restoring the land and the relationships, creating a powerful heritage to pass on to future generations. “I want Seed2Shirt to be the game-changer in that sense, so that we could have a stake in production value chains and think of ourselves as a Tier 1 and Tier 2 supplier with good intent. And how do we build a legacy for generations to come? We do that by not only being purveyors, but producers in this space.”

Learn more

• Where can I find out more about Seed2Shirt’s Farmer Enrichment Program?

• How can I financially support the work that Seed2Shirt is doing?

• Where can I see Seed2Shirt products?

• Where can I learn about regenerative farming?

Greetings from: Santa Barbara, CA and Gouersa, Burkina Faso.

This article was written with the editorial support of sustainability journalist, Beatrice Murray-Nag.

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