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Cameroon: Rich Potentials, Stagnating Production
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Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)
17 April 2008
Posted to the web 17 April 2008
Lukong Pius Nyuylime
Cameroon's diverse climate provides a variety of opportunities for crop cultivation. Even the hardest climate of the North and Far North provinces and perhaps the northern part of Adamawa admits the cultivation of a category of crops, notably, cereals, like rice, millet and sorghum.
According to the Economic and Financial Report for the 2007 financial year, the Gross Domestic Production (GDP) share of the agricultural sub-sector in the primary sector was estimated at 74.8 % inn 2007. This however included 66.4 % for subsistence farming and 8.4 % for export crops. The report underscores the development potentials of the sub-sector which justifies the huge financial resources allocated to it by the State in 2006, about CFA 26 billion.
The last transporters' strike action in Cameroon, which ignited violence virtually paralysing the whole country, exposed the short comings in the country's food production. The strike had hardly gone into its third day and long queues were already found in front of bakery shops with people desperately looking for bread. This is a major indication of how dependent Cameroonians are on their own soil said to be a land of food self-sufficiency.
Statistics collected in a less exhaustible manner by workers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development show production globally below the potential of the sub-sector. Food crop production according to their estimates grew by about 3 per cent between 2005 and 2006. The food production sub-sector, in effect, is marked by funding difficulties, remoteness of certain producing areas, poor supervision of farmers and little use of agricultural inputs.
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As far as cereals are concerned, maize production for instance rose by 6 per cent between 2005 and 2006 from 1,023,106 to 1,084,492 metric tons. Ins spite of the increase, domestic supply remains largely insufficient vis a vis demand. In order to overturn the deficit, government set up the National Maize Sector Support Programme in 2005. The programme aims at facilitating the use of improved seeds, supporting producers' micro-projects, organising farmers and building their capacities.
Paddy rice production equally rose by 6 per cent in 2006 to 56,079 metric tons. National production remains lower than demand. The shortage is offset by import which rose to 433,032 metric tons in 2006 for a value of CFA 72.5 billion against CFA 429,866 metric tons for CFA 71.6 billion the previous year. Tubers such as Irish potatoes, cassava and sweet potatoes remain the most buoyant crops of the sub-sector. Their production rose by 2.2 per cent during the same year. The crops continue to receive support from the National Root Crops Development Programme launched in 2004. Plantain and banana production have equally registered mild increase in production but supply remains lower than demand.
In spite of the effort and resources put in place by government to step up production, available data indicates that Cameroon does not future anywhere among the global food producing countries. Even Africa as a whole, which is said to be a "bush", does not match its status as a "bush" continent where its inhabitants are making good use of the bushes in growing food. Yet no development can occur anywhere in the world where a majority of the population is not food growers.
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