Cocoa Quality Premiums : 756 SW Cocoa Growers Bag FCFA 170 Million

Although the on-going armed conflict rumbling in Anglophone Cameroon has scaled down cocoa production power, growers in the South West Region have succeeded to snatch the second position on the national production chart in the 2017-2018 cocoa season. The effort earned some 756 cocoa farmers from Meme, Fako, Kupe Muanenguba and Manyu administrative Divisions a mouth-watering FCFA 170,063,460 as premium for good quality cocoa-beans processing. The South West Region with its apex producing basin in Meme Division fell from its first position in national cocoa produce rating when it generated 45 percent of all cocoa from Cameroon.
To hand over the prizes to meritorious farmers, the Minister of Trade, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, made the journey to Buea, South West Regional capital, on 20 April, 2021. The Minister chaired the premium distribution ceremony at the Buea Municipal stadium, urging the cocoa growers of the Region to stay in the path of good quality beans, to part with child labour, avoid the destruction of forests but include the youth and the women in the cocoa production chain. This four-level recommendation, according to the Trade boss, would guarantee the continuous adherence of important international firms to buy Cameroon cocoa even for better offers. The cocoa premium money for which the Minister was at its eleventh stop-over in Buea to distribute out of a total of 16 stations, is actually, a stop-gap measure by the Cameroon Head of State to cushion the 2016-2017 umpteenth crisis that hit the cocoa market and drastically eroded the farmers’ purchasing power. Such actions included the reduction by half the cocoa export fee to stand at FCFA 75 for each kilogramme since 1 August 2017. Also, an improvement campaign to build cocoa post-harvest processing centres of excellence was realized with 10 such centres constructed across cocoa producing basins in Cameroon. An...