Title: Organic and fair-trade cotton production issues in Africa: a value chain approach applied to Burkina Faso and Mali

Authors: Yankou Diasso; Claire Mainguy

Addresses: BETA, UMR CNRS 7522, Université de Strasbourg, 61 Avenue de la Forêt noire, 67085 Strasbourg, France ' BETA, UMR CNRS 7522, Université de Strasbourg, 61 Avenue de la Forêt noire, 67085 Strasbourg, France

Abstract: In this paper, the Global Value Chain approach is used to analyse the organic and fair-trade production of cotton in Mali and Burkina Faso. Two issues are raised: what are the producers' advantages to produce organic cotton? Does it offer greater opportunities to create local added value? We compare the evolution of the respective profitability of the two global value chains in Mali and Burkina Faso. We point out the vulnerabilities related to the mode of governance of the organic and fair-trade GVC due among other factors to the weakness of yields, the narrowness of the market, the dependency on bailouts and the support of the NGOs and eventually to missing perspectives of local transformation.

Keywords: Africa; Mali; Burkina Faso; cotton; organic label; fair-trade label; global value chain.

DOI: 10.1504/IJARGE.2017.088401

International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, 2017 Vol.13 No.4, pp.325 - 350

Received: 07 Feb 2017
Accepted: 27 Aug 2017
Published online: 05 Dec 2017 *

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