Why this series
Business faces rising climate, nature and supply-chain exposure. Could place-based collaboration - by river basin or bioregion - lower risk, strengthen compliance and build resilient supply?
What this interview covers
In Benin’s Upper Ouémé Basin, the future of a shea tree connects many lives - the woman who gathers its fruit, the farmer who cultivates around it, the business that processes its kernels and the communities who depend on the surrounding land and water. These connections extend to the wildlife sharing the landscape and, downstream, the wetlands where migratory birds find refuge.
Laurent Glin, President and CEO of Africa Green Corporation SA, brings more than two decades of experience in ecological and organic agriculture, business and research. His career includes roles at Better Cotton, the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and Wageningen University, where he earned a PhD in governance of sustainable agro-food. He is now working with partners to explore how shea production and trade could support a healthier landscape and a fairer share of its value.
Laurent: “A tree connects a woman’s income today with the condition of the soil and the possibilities available to the next generation.”
Q: Laurent, take us into the landscape. What would we find there?
Laurent: You would find a working landscape where people grow cotton, cashew and food crops, with shea trees scattered through fields and fallow land. These parklands have been shaped by generations of farming and local knowledge.
The Ouémé connects this landscape to communities and wetlands further downstream, supporting wildlife and migratory birds. What happens to the soil, trees and water here has consequences beyond any individual farm.
You would also find women gathering shea fruit. Their work connects the trees to household income, food and products used far beyond Benin.
Q: Why begin with shea?
Laurent: Shea is already part of people’s lives and livelihoods. Women know the trees, gather the fruit and organise through groups and cooperatives. There is an existing market, and our BIOKARIT processing facility is located within the basin.
That gives us something concrete to build from. We can connect the health of the land with the way a product is bought and processed, and with who receives the income.
But we have to keep looking beyond shea. Cotton, cashew, livestock and food crops all depend on the same landscape. Our starting point needs to help us understand those connections.
Q: What is changing - and how do people experience it?
Laurent: Many shea trees are ageing, and too few young trees survive to replace them. Young shoots can be damaged during cultivation or browsed and trampled by livestock. Other trees disappear as land uses change.
For women collecting the fruit, this can mean walking further and spending more time gathering fewer kernels.
That is a very direct way to understand landscape degradation. It shows up in someone’s working day and in what she can bring home.
Q: At the recent Gerana Gathering, you raised a difficult question: who has the power to protect a tree?
Laurent: The woman gathering the fruit often does not control the land where it grows. Decisions about keeping a tree, clearing it or protecting a seedling may sit with someone else.
The landholder also faces real choices. Keeping more trees can mean giving up cropping space or changing how a field is cultivated. If the benefits of shea go elsewhere, why would that person make the investment?
We need arrangements that recognise both sides, while protecting women whose access is already insecure.
Q: How might those arrangements work better for everyone involved?
Laurent: We are exploring agreements between landholders, women’s groups and the buyer, supported by locally agreed rules.
The aim is to make responsibilities and benefits clear: who can collect, who protects young trees, how regeneration is rewarded and how disagreements are resolved.
These arrangements need to build on women’s knowledge and existing local institutions. They also need careful testing. We cannot assume that a signed agreement automatically makes someone’s position stronger.
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Q: Could making shea more valuable create new problems?
Laurent: Yes. As a resource becomes more valuable, people who previously had access can find themselves excluded.
That is why women’s rights have to be part of the work from the beginning. We need to ask who can influence decisions and whether women retain access as commercial interest grows. Widows and households with weaker local standing need particular attention.
Higher value will only help if the people who depend on the resource can share in it securely.
Q: Where does business fit into this?
Laurent: Our shea-processing business depends on a healthy landscape and on the women who gather and supply the shea kernels. That creates a responsibility to look beyond the next purchase.
Buyers can help through dependable relationships, clear purchasing commitments and fair rewards for quality and the work of regeneration.
Processing within the basin also gives us an opportunity to retain more value locally. We are exploring how processing residues could support energy production and soil improvement.
The business relationship can become one source of continuity in work that needs time.
Q: What are you hoping to learn through Gerana and other landscapes?
Laurent: We bring practical experience of shea, processing and working with women’s cooperatives. We also bring questions we have not resolved.
How have others helped farmers and livestock keepers agree on shared land use? How can local authorities work together across boundaries? What kinds of finance can support trees that take years to mature?
Other landscapes will have different experiences. Sharing those experiences can help us question our assumptions and make better decisions. We hope our own challenges will be useful to others too.
Q: If you had a magic wand and could change one thing for the Ouémé landscape, what would it be?
Laurent: I would want the people caring for the landscape to have the voice, recognition and support they need to shape its future.
Farmers are often asked to change how they work, but they cannot carry that change alone. They need reliable markets, fair returns and confidence that their efforts will be supported over time.
My wish would be for farmers, businesses and public institutions to look beyond the next harvest or project and build a shared commitment to this place. One that gives young people reasons to stay, women greater opportunity, and farming a future that restores the land.
Q: Finally, what does “Think Like a Landscape” mean to you in the Ouémé?
Laurent: For me, it means looking at a decision over a longer period and across the whole place.
A tree connects a woman’s income today with the condition of the soil and the possibilities available to the next generation. A buyer’s decision can affect whether that tree is worth protecting.
Thinking this way asks us to take those relationships seriously and to build ways of working that can last long enough for the landscape to recover.