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Agriculture in Cameroon is an industry that has plenty of potential.
Cameroon production in 2018, by FAO
According to a document jointly published in 2007 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), and that of Fishery, Livestock and Animal Husbandry (MINEPIA); in recent years, food production did not follow the rapid demographic increase, especially in the urban areas. According to these ministries, food security has to be assured by an increase in the production of food stuff and other crops which could substitute importations. To meet these needs, these ministries have as an objective for a sector's development strategy, set a target in 2015 to train 30.000 farmers per year. MINADER has 35 centres for agricultural training (24 are rural training centres and 11 are centres for the training of young farmers). Furthermore, these two ministries are actually offering training in the rural development sector like extension agents, agricultural advisers and professional farmer groupings (farmers’ organisations).
The Government, faced with the effects of the financial crisis, has taken steps to boost production of commodities such as corn, rice, cassava, potato, oil palm and plantain. For food crops, these measures aim to improve commercialisation products through the construction of warehouses for conservation. In 2009, the agricultural sector accounted for approximately 75.6% of primary industry with 68.8% for food and agriculture 6.8% for export crops. This sub-sector increased by 8.3% compared to 2008, contributing 0.7 percentage point to growth actual primary sector. (Institut National de la Statistique – Annuaire Statistique du Cameroun 2010)
In 2009, the government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development intends to implement an emergency plan to increase agricultural production. This plan aims to provide farmers planting material; subsidize pesticides and fertilizer from 20 to 50%, grant loans at low interest rates, create five pools of agricultural machinery support up to 15%, acquire about a hundred tractors and increase the capacity of processing, storage and packaging. All this will lead to improved agricultural production. The National Agricultural Extension and Agricultural Research (PNVRA) through outreach activities conducted by Extension Agents Zone (AVZ) provide technical guidance and sometimes financial farmers. (Institut National de la Statistique – Annuaire Statistique du Cameroun 2010)
In March 2012, “Cameroun Tribune” published an article on the eve of the launching of the 2012 farming season in Cameroon, stating that apart from some few mechanised industrial exploitations, agriculture in Cameroon is essentially traditional. With subsistence agriculture, manual work is usually very arduous, the cultivated surface area is also reduced, and yields are low and therefore insufficient to meet both domestic and external demand for food. This article reveals that Cameroon is forced to import large quantities of cereals (rice, maize) to fill the gap in production, feed its population and meet the demands of the brewing industries. That is why during the agro pastoral show in Ebolowa, President
Production
Cameroon produced in 2018: * 5 million tons ofcassava
''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively ...
(13th largest producer in the world);
* 3.9 million tonnes of plantain
Plantain may refer to:
Plants and fruits
* Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking
** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa''
* ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...
(3rd largest producer in the world, only behind Congo and Ghana);
* 2.6 million tons of palm oil
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced from ...
(7th largest producer in the world);
* 2.3 million tons of maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
;
* 1.9 million tons of taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
(3rd largest producer in the world, second only to Nigeria and China);
* 1.4 million tons of sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...
;
* 1.2 million tons of banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...
;
* 1.2 million tons of sugarcane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
;
* 1 million tons of tomato
The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...
(19th largest producer in the world);
* 674 thousand tonnes of yam (7th largest producer in the world);
* 594 thousand tons of peanut
The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...
;
* 410 thousand tons of sweet potato
The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...
;
* 402 thousand tons of beans
A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...
;
* 332 thousand tons of rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima
''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...
;
* 310 thousand tons of pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...
;
* 307 thousand tons of cocoa
Cocoa may refer to:
Chocolate
* Chocolate
* ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree
* Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao''
* Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...
(5th largest producer in the world, losing to Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia and Nigeria);
* 302 thousand tons of potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
;
* 301 thousand tons of onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...
;
* 249 thousand tons of cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
;
In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products, such as coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
(33 thousand tons) and natural rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...
(55 thousand tons). Crops
According to a document jointly published in 2007 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), and that of Fishery, Livestock and Animal Husbandry (MINEPIA); in recent years, food production did not follow the rapid demographic increase, especially in the urban areas. According to these ministries, food security has to be assured by an increase in the production of food stuff and other crops which could substitute importations. To meet these needs, these ministries have as an objective for a sector's development strategy, set a target in 2015 to train 30.000 farmers per year. MINADER has 35 centres for agricultural training (24 are rural training centres and 11 are centres for the training of young farmers). Furthermore, these two ministries are actually offering training in the rural development sector like extension agents, agricultural advisers and professional farmer groupings (farmers’ organisations).
The Government, faced with the effects of the financial crisis, has taken steps to boost production of commodities such as corn, rice, cassava, potato, oil palm and plantain. For food crops, these measures aim to improve commercialisation products through the construction of warehouses for conservation. In 2009, the agricultural sector accounted for approximately 75.6% of primary industry with 68.8% for food and agriculture 6.8% for export crops. This sub-sector increased by 8.3% compared to 2008, contributing 0.7 percentage point to growth actual primary sector. (Institut National de la Statistique – Annuaire Statistique du Cameroun 2010)
In 2009, the government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development intends to implement an emergency plan to increase agricultural production. This plan aims to provide farmers planting material; subsidize pesticides and fertilizer from 20 to 50%, grant loans at low interest rates, create five pools of agricultural machinery support up to 15%, acquire about a hundred tractors and increase the capacity of processing, storage and packaging. All this will lead to improved agricultural production. The National Agricultural Extension and Agricultural Research (PNVRA) through outreach activities conducted by Extension Agents Zone (AVZ) provide technical guidance and sometimes financial farmers. (Institut National de la Statistique – Annuaire Statistique du Cameroun 2010)
In March 2012, “Cameroun Tribune” published an article on the eve of the launching of the 2012 farming season in Cameroon, stating that apart from some few mechanised industrial exploitations, agriculture in Cameroon is essentially traditional. With subsistence agriculture, manual work is usually very arduous, the cultivated surface area is also reduced, and yields are low and therefore insufficient to meet both domestic and external demand for food. This article reveals that Cameroon is forced to import large quantities of cereals (rice, maize) to fill the gap in production, feed its population and meet the demands of the brewing industries. That is why during the agro pastoral show in Ebolowa, President Paul Biya
Paul Biya (born Paul Barthélemy Biya'a bi Mvondo; 13 February 1933) is a Cameroonian politician who has served as the president of Cameroon since 6 November 1982.
stressed the need to modernised Cameroon's agriculture, so as to increase the productivity of small farmers and encourage the emergence of “second generation” production units; that is to say large and medium size companies. In this perspective, the mechanisation of agriculture must be a fact, given the multiplier effect of machines in the chain of production.
See also
*Economy of Cameroon
The economy of Cameroon was one of the most prosperous in Africa for a quarter of a century after independence. The drop in commodity prices for its principal exports – petroleum, cocoa, coffee, and cotton – in the mid-1980s, combined with ...
*mountains
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher th ...
References
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