Liberalising reforms and structural changes have facilitated the development of Cameroon’s most important sector
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| The Ministry of Agriculture is committed to the continued modernisation of farming and is focused on export opportunities |
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griculture
is the driving force behind the Cameroonian economy, representing a
third of the nation’s GDP and employing 70 percent of the population.
In contrast with many developing countries, Cameroon has invested heavily
in modernising its agricultural sector over the past twenty years and
has firm intentions to continue with the sector’s development.
The country is blessed with fertile lands (over 30 percent of the its
territory is arable) and has long been a world producer of coffee, cotton,
bananas, tobacco, palm oil, rubber and cocoa, as well as livestock and
timber. Presently, Cameroon is the only self-sufficient country in the
Central African Economic and Monetary Community, where it has found
a growing market for exports. Indeed, agricultural exports currently
account for 60 percent of the country’s total exports, and Cameroon
is now shipping out more than 250,000 tons of bananas, 70,000 tons of
coffee, 120,000 tons of cocoa, and 100,000 tons of palm oil per year.
Today, Cameroon is the 6th largest cocoa producer and the 8th largest coffee producer in the world.
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MAIN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS: Coffee, Cocoa, Cotton, Rubber, Bananas, Oilseed, Grains, Roots starches, Livestock, Timber
But regional market growth is not all that Cameroon officials have in mind. Industry members are targeting European markets, and are confident of Cameroon’s success there through diversification and the use of larger-scale, higher yield production methods for selected crops, such as off-season produce. Minister of State for Agriculture Augustin Frederic Kodock says that crop diversification has been in place since the commencement of the agricultural popularisation programme some twenty years ago, and this has allowed Cameroonians to produce new fruits and vegetables that ensure a quick market return for them. The same policy will be applied for European markets. He comments, “Tropical fruit juices are now popular in Europe and America, and it is just a question of planting more orchards and taking the right policy measures to back up this new avenue of growth. The same goes for out of season produce. At the moment, we are launching a large scale production of market garden products for export to Northern markets.”
Targeting European markets is a key to future development
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The industry’s confidence stems from the success of a series of liberalising reforms and structural changes implemented by the government since 1990, which have significantly increased efficiency and production in the sector and which led government officials to believe that there is still much more untapped potential to explore.
Following on the heels of the successful privatisation of the national sugar company, Camusco, which today is one of the nation’s top companies, employing over 6,000 workers, new government projects include the upcoming privatisation of Cameroon’s Cotton Development Company, Sodecoton, and of the Cameroon Development Corporation’s (CDC) rubber, palm oil and banana plantations. These projects are designed to help bring about the transformation the sector needs to fully enter international markets. Furthermore, Mr Kodock says that private investment in the production of food crops is on the rise. He states, “Rice production has begun in the northwest of the country, and the Egyptian Minister of Agriculture has financed a new project in the Benoue Valley. I have also recently received a delegation of British businessmen with whom I discussed the possibility of creating new agricultural farms.” Mr Kodock also says there are additional opportunities for British companies in supplying agricultural machinery and fertilizers. He adds, “We need an investor who is interested in manufacturing tractors here in Cameroon.”
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