Chapter 4. The case of Cameroon 117
- Introduction and objectives
Agricultural policies in Central and West Africa have long focused on developing traditional export sectors
as they bring in foreign exchange earnings. This has resulted in marginalizing consumer products (cereals
and food products) on which small farmers depend for their survival and integration into the economy.
Starting nearly a decade ago, issues and challenges related to food security have become more critical,
with rapid population growth and fewer people working in agriculture.
The new agricultural policies, inspired by the master CAADP / NEPAD program reflect the growing
interest in improving the competitiveness of smallholder farms that face input supply and market access
as some of their main obstacles. However, (i) an important gap that enables smallholders to participate
in the development and implementation of agricultural policies still exists, (ii) the added value in the
main commodity value chains is distributed unfairly at the expense of small farmers who account for
a significant portion of agricultural production, (iii) and commodity sectors (cereals and food products)
almost completely lack inter-branch organization.
Moreover, food crops are essential in ensuring the population’s food security and improving farmers’
incomes and people’s living conditions (fight against poverty), especially in rural areas. These broad
issues call for analyzing and understanding the situation of the main food production chains and the
policies developed to improve their performance. This will help identify bottlenecks and raise government
agencies’ awareness on integrated support solutions to food supply chains.
This study focuses on analyzing agricultural policies in Central Africa and their impact on commodity value
chains and will cover five main areas:
- An inventory of national policies and strategies for agricultural investment implemented by countries
in Central Africa (Cameroon, in particular) and other countries^2 (such as Gabon, the Republic of
Congo and the Central African Republic); - Analyzing these strategies and policies’ components that directly affect the development of commod-
ity chains. The various direct and indirect initiatives, aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of
different sectors, their members’ (colleges, links, etc.) competencies and creating added value, will be
identified and enumerated; - Activities aiming to organize and structure producers into viable economic entities (cooperatives,
economic groups, unions, federations, etc.) and the support given to the different functions of the
added value chain within sectors will be examined; - Policies and specific actions taken by the state to remove capitalization constraints, ensure access to
means of production and product marketing at remunerative prices will be analyzed; - Objective indicators (including an application of the state’s human capacity to carry out these programs
and identify concrete gaps and deficiencies) will clarify how these so-called new policies actually take
into account promoting strategic products for domestic consumption (food sectors).
Concretely, this study aims to answer the following questions:
To what extent are national strategies likely to promote the development of sectors that support
small farmers?
How do the development and implementation of these strategies allow producer organizations set
(^2) Most of the analysis focuses on the case of Cameroon. For other countries in the sub-region study is limited to
the presentation of a summary of key information and direction.