Entry: Bill Guyton
Please see below an article written by Lukong Pius Nyuylime of All Africa Press. World Cocoa Foundation is pleased to be a major funder of the Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development. I had the opportunity to visit some of the farmer field schools in Cameroon a couple of years ago (please see my earlier blogs). The program in Cameroon, under Jonas Mva Mva's leadership, has been progressing well. We commend the Government of Cameroon for support of sustainble cocoa in the country.
Cameroon: Farmers Trained on Cocoa Cultivation Practices
Lukong Pius Nyuylime
29 June 2009
The 38 agricultural Extension Workers were trained recently in the Centre Region by IITA experts.
Against the backdrop of growing concern over low supply of young cocoa plants compared to increasing demand, experts of the Sustainable Tree Crop Program (STCP) of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) recently provided new skills to farmers in the Centre Region for the cultivation of cocoa in order to increase yield and farmers' income.
Drawn from seven cooperatives and other agricultural associations as well as the administration, the farmers received lessons on basic techniques of intensifying cocoa farms through the Farmer Learning Group Approach conceived within the framework of the STCP. The concept of cocoa intensification according to one of the experts, Richard Asare, an expert in tree diversification from IITA, Ghana, involves basically training farmers to apply best agricultural practices, notably rational use of fertilizer, pesticide, insecticides, planting of hybrid cocoa material, tree diversification, etc in cocoa cultivation for economic and environmental sustainability.
The Farmer Learning Group is a structured group base approach designed to teach farmers specific skills and practices on planting, replanting and diversification in cocoa establishment using demonstrations, field observations, field exercises and discussions as key training and learning tools. "Farmers need to be made more professional so as to raise their level of income and at the same time maintain and sustain the ecosystem on which their activities depend", Jonas Mva Mva, Country Manager for STCP-Cameroon said during the training.
"Seed production and multiplication farms are able to supply only 30 per cent of the young cocoa plants demanded by farmers for planting", Emerant Evenga, Agriculture Extension Worker and Deputy Communication Officer for the country's Ministry of Agriculture said, stating that annual demand for young cocoa plants is presently estimated at 80 million.
"Since supply cannot meet demand, it is important to train farmers on how to improve yields from existing farms", he said underscoring that one of the most important ways is to rationalize the use of fertilizer and pesticides.
Poor use of these products is partly responsible for low production, Evenga said. A hectare of land in Cameroon today produces between 200 and 500 kilograms of beans which is far below standard production of between 700 kilograms and 1.5 tons a hectare.
Comments (1)
As a Cameroonian and hailing from a cocoa farming community in the South West Zone and an ex-worker of the defunct National Produce Marketing Board, I would like to express my gratitute to these international agricultural development institutions caming to the rescure of hopless but hardworking cocoa farmers to whom most of our top administrators, traders and processing companies owe so much.In the backdrop of agricTechnicians and Extension workers (civil servants in the Ministry of Agriculture), there's an urgent need to revive the Cooperative College in Bamenda (enjoyed technical support from GTZ, USAID etc in the past) and improve on the school programmes to ensure sustainability in farmers training, to achieve good farming practices in harvest and post-harvest activities. Engaging efficient CSOs/private sector in agribusiness services delivery. Teach farmers through their groups to be self-reliant than otherwise. The STCP Programme has a definate life time and we need to ensure continuity after the Americans must have gone. We shouldn't do the same mistakes that led us to this situation. Ghana which was behind us in aggregate annul production has come from behind to increase their production p/ht. of cocoa land. We should stop analysing our presumptive barriers and redirect our scarce resources on creative solution models within the liberalized, globalized cocoa business. Lets judge our successes by an annual stock taking and progress reporting of the different projects earmarked for cocoa and discarding unproductive investments.
Posted by Sylvanus Nekenja | August 21, 2009 11:00 AM
Posted on August 21, 2009 11:00