Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

132 Rebuilding West Africa’s food potential

• Consolidating the organization and development of production sectors focused on exports and industrial
  processing because of their social and economic development importance in various regions of the country,
  and in particular quickly completing recapitalization of agro-industrial companies under rehabilitation;


• Developing regional and sub-regional market access that presents significant prospects and opportunities
  for a wide range of domestic products;


• Consolidating professional and inter-professional organizations to develop new partnerships in managing
  the sector;


• Completing the withdrawal of public services from activities that fall within the competitive field. Adapting
  these activities to the agricultural policy’s new objectives and to their core tasks;


• Consolidating the rule of law in commercial and financial fields, pursuing ongoing reforms, strengthening
  their application and providing flexible and effective management of procedures to create a more
  favorable environment for the development of national and foreign investment in the agricultural sector;


• Directing public investment to support existing autonomous production dynamics to increase their
  efficiency and their induced effects, and for structural actions such as strengthening farmer organizations,
  developing micro-finance systems, rehabilitating rural roads and participatory management of grassroots
  socio-economic infrastructure.

Surveys conducted in 2000 with farmers on developing the rural sector development strategy classified sector

liberalization as the main cause of their difficulties. Adverse effects reported are:

Lack of support for producers,

Rising input prices,

The fall of the purchase price paid to producers and

Lack of funding.

In 2003, the government of Cameroon developed a rural sector development strategy document. Thus,

current agricultural policies mainly aim to reach production goals as defined in this strategy document and

presented in the table below:

Table 3. Agricultural Production Objectives in Cameroon in 2015

Production (thousands of t) Annual Growth (%)

2001 Est. 2005 Est. 2010 Et. 2015 2001/2005 2005/2010 2010/2015

Cereals 1 341 1 686 2 345 3 294 5.9 6.8 7.0

R & T 3 517 3 836 4 916 6 319 2.2 5.1 5.2

Pulses 263 300 402 538 3.4 6.0 6.0

Oil seeds 209 239 321 430 3.4 6.1 6.0

Vegetables 1 278 1 405 1 837 2 400 2.4 5.5 5.5

Fruits 2 019 2 282 3 067 4 076 3.1 6.1 5.9

Palm oil 140 177 248 350 6.1 7.0 7.1

Cocoa 123 140 188 280 3.3 6.1 8.3

Arabica coffee 10 10 13 15 0.0 5.4 2.9

Robusta coffee 50 50 72 93 0.0 7.6 5.3

Cotton 220 270 330 400 5.3 4.1 4.0

Source: SDSR