Agriculture: The Milestone Covered

Agriculture, incidentally, remains the cornerstone and the livewire on which the Cameroonian economy has counted on since independence. The sector as of today is said to be employing an estimated 70 per cent of the country's workforce, while providing 42 per cent of its GDP and 30 per cent of its export revenue. Conscious of the fact that the country is blessed with fertile land and regularly abundant rainfall in most regions, politicians angle their development strategy very much on it. The soil, it is said, never cheats.

Oil and other mineral resources that tend to deceive many political leaders will one day elapse but agriculture will remain. President Paul Biya does not seem to be indifferent to this conception. Within the ending seven years of his rule, he has hardly kept aside agriculture in his addresses to the nation.

The ball for a new impetus was set rolling at the Ebolowa Agro-pastoral Show in 2011. The agric trade fair opened floodgates of opportunities for an extensive diagnosis of the challenges therein and the way forward. It equally occasioned the launching of a new agricultural policy aiming at three essential objectives: feed the population, generate jobs and boost exports.

In Ebolowa, the Head of State talked of transforming the country’s agricultural sector from its long standing rudimentary stage into modernity in order to march the exigencies of the time. A lot of water has flown under the bridge seven years after with fingers counting the successes registered so far.

To begin with, there has been a multiplicity of programmes and projects streamlined and worked out to suit the exigencies of the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP) which remains the guiding line to realise vision 2035.

Some of the programmes have been completed, others renewed and some still under execution. New projects created within the restructuring programme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development include: Support Project for the Production of High Quality Plant Material (PAPMAV), National Project for the Relaunch of the Cocoa and Coffee Sectors (PNRDFCC), National Project for the Development of Cereal, projects to promote oil palm and rubber production, and Roots and Tuber support project. Worthy of note equally are renewed programmes such as: Support Programme for the Reinsertion of Young Agric Farmers and Vulnerable Persons (PAIJA) , Safety and Enhanced ...