The season was launched in Melong, Littoral Region last week by the Minister of Trade who underscored government’s ambition to reverse the downward trend noticed in coffee production in recent years
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development says 14,000 hectares of coffee plantations will be restored while 94,000 hectares of modern plantations created as part of government’s recovery plan for the sector.
Nurseries will also be boosted with 13,000 tonnes of certified Arabica coffee seeds and 96 million Robusta coffee cuttings. Gabriel Mbairobe made the announcement as he joined his counterpart of Trade, Luc MagloireMbargaAtangana in launching the 2021-2022 coffee season in Cameroon. The event that took place in Melong, Moungo Division of the Littoral Region was the brainchild of the National Office of Cocoa and Coffee.
"The Head of State has authorized the release of two billion F to pay the arrears of previous years to the nurserymen," Mbairobe said.
The transformation drive will also entail equipping UCCAO (L'UnionCentrale des CoopérativesAgricoles de l'Ouest) next year, with a complete coffee roasting and packaging chain and while the seed fields will be rehabilitated, according to the Minister.
UCCAO works in collaboration with a large network of small producers and prestigious cooperatives in Cameroon and Africa, favouring sustainable and social agricultural practices.
Cameroon’s coffee sector has been experiencing lows during the last coffee seasons.
The volume of marketed production fell drastically to 12,157 tons during the 2020-2021 season, which is a 50.7% drop from that of the previous season, making it the lowest ever in the last five seasons. It is also the first time the volume of coffee commercialized in the country is falling under the 20,000 tons mark since the 2015-2016 season, according to the National Cocoa and Coffee Board.
Specifically, the volume of commercialized Robusta coffee dropped by half, from 23,239 tons during the 2019-2020 season, to only 11,745 tons during the 2020-2021 period. While only 412 tons of Arabica coffee were soldduring the 2020-2021 season, down from 1,452 tons in 2019-2020.
The Cocoa and Coffee Interprofessional Council attributes the downward trend tothe low productivity of coffee plantations owing to lack of rehabilitation, the youth’s disinterest in coffee farming because of this low profitability, the demanding nature of the activity, and more lucrative offers in other sectors.
Trade Minister, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, said alliances in the value chain between the Cocoa and Coffee Interprofessional Council and the International Trade Centre was timely coming amid the sustainable revival of the sector dubbed "New generation."
He said the initiative will boost the sector by absorbingsome 300 young people in the production of quality and sustainable coffee, train 1000 coffee producers in coffee monitoring techniques, among others within three-year timeframe.
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