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Cameroon |
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Cocoa farmers are urged to improve their production.
But how is this to be achieved?
Introduced in Cameroon between 1815 and 1895, cocoa production quickly gained prominence. It is now produced in seven provinces of Cameroon. Until independence, production was steady. But between 1960 and 2000, production dropped. Now the government aims to step up production from 120,000 tons of cocoa annually, to 200,000 by the year 2010. This strategy is being put in place by the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Cocoa Development Corporation (SODECAO) — a strategy aimed at seeking positive solutions to all the problems hindering production. Problems such as low quality seeds; aging plantations; inadequate output; bad roads; lack of unity among farmers’ organisations.
SODECAO is the overall body that supervises the activities of cocoa farmers in Cameroon. It also acts as an intermediary between the farmers and international buying bodies. When the government liberalised the cocoa sector in 1995, licence-buying agents came in and tried to dictate the pace and call the shots. But this met with resistance from the Ministry of Agriculture Research, and from SODECAO which tried to protect the farmers.
Of non-petroleum products in the country, cocoa contributes about 28% to the economy and 40% of agricultural products. Income generated from these activities, is about 100 billion CFA francs. From this, farmers receive about 44 billion CFA francs; the middlemen receive about 37 billion CFA francs; 19 billion CFA francs go into the state coffers.
The government now wants to radically increase cocoa production but because the cocoa plants are getting old, this ambition cannot be realised. In order to salvage the situation, SODECAO recently launched a national awareness and mobilisation campaign in the cocoa sector. SODECAO‘s general manager, Mr Joseph Ingwatt II, said that re-planting must take place in the areas of potential cultivable land. Mr Ingwat believes that the whole issue of increasing production rests on the shoulders of the State, peasant farmers themselves, research centres and public organisations.
The decision to re-launch cocoa production has been taken because cocoa still occupies a strategic place in Cameroon’s economy. The life of peasant farmers still revolves very much on cocoa as a product that easily embraces the cultivation of other crops on the same parcel of land.
- Charles Nji, Cameroon, August 2003 — © Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment