Urban Agriculture On The Rise

Contrary to the past when agriculture was thought to be the preserve of villagers, city dwellers increasingly embark on agriculture to make ends meet. All forms of agriculture are practiced in Douala ranging from horticulture to intensive farming passing through, gardening, fish farming and livestock rearing. As concerns horticulture, it is considered normal, given that the flowers planted contribute to embellish the beauty of the city besides being an economic activity as flowers are highly solicited during marriages, funerals and other public ceremonies. There are those who grow flowers in pots or containers around their houses just to beautify their environment
Gardening however is not within the view of everyone as it is practiced either in an enclosure or far from human habitation. However, there is a small community of women mostly from the West and North West Regions who have taken to full time intensive farming and gardening. They cultivate crops on any unoccupied land or even rent lad from around the outskirts of the city to carry out their farming activity. Such farms can be found around the old airport, the vast unoccupied land near the ASECNA field and other dotted patches of unoccupied land within the city. Among them is a small category of farmers who consist of people who have bought pieces of land and while waiting to construct a house, decided to use it as farmland to mark their presence and also feed from the land. They cultivate crops like huckleberries, tomatoes, green spices, lettuces and foodstuffs like plantain, cocoyams, egusi, yams and cassava.
There is a new category of urban farmers who consist of fish farming. Technology has evolved such that people can now have fish ponds in front of their yards in containers or make shift ponds with tarpaulin where th...