Tameka Peoples

Tameka Peoples, founder of Seed 2 Shirt, former Air Force Veteran – aerospace policy expert, non-profit founder, visionary and all-around inspiration.

When Tameka set out to create a Black-operated t-shirt supply chain in the United States, she quickly realised many of the production systems weren’t accessible to her as an industry outsider. She turned to Africa to source cotton, discovering that 99% of cotton there is exported as a raw fiber to be processed elsewhere in the world.

Solution-focused, Tameka began making relationships with transformation facilities (ginning, spinning, and dyeing houses) across the continent. Eventually, she encountered a ginning factory in Burkina Faso, which was devoted to the transformation of local organic cotton fiber and entered into a partnership with The National Union Of Cotton Growers Of Burkina (UNPCB) to source Seed 2 Shirt’s cotton, and transform it into raw material within the local region

The partnership is about more than just sourcing cotton, but about empowering a mostly-female cohort of Black farmers, and future proofing for farmer wellbeing and healthy land.

“Until we see change in conditions, change in soil, organic matter, change in true resources for the farmers, and in particular women farmers in Burkina Faso, we’re just scratching the surface. And I would say Seed 2 Shirt is just getting started.”