Cmr to produce 600,000 tonnes of cocoa by 2020

Cameroon intends to produce by 2020, 600,000 tonnes of cocoa, 125,000 tons of arabica coffee and 35,000 tons of robusta coffee, according to sources.

"To achieve these goals, Cameroon has drawn up a plan for recovery from these two sectors, in order to restore these two crops their letters of nobility", explained the head of the inter-professional Council for cocoa and coffee in Cameroon, Thompson Enouga. According to one financial expert, Achille Folefack, "the realization of this recovery plan requires an investment of 600 billion CFA to mobilize".

In addition to the mobilisation of these funds, adequate measures should be taken upstream and downstream, including phyto-sanitary treatment of all plantations throughout the national territory, the production of high quality plant material and the return to stability in these two sectors with a significant compensation to growers.

The Cameroon cocoa Orchard is estimated currently at 425 000 hectares for a production of approximately 230,000 tonnes per year, meanwhile, coffee is cultivated on 140,000 hectares for a production of 170,000 tonnes last year.

In fact, according to forecasts by the inter-professional Commission for cocoa and coffee (CICC), the Cameroonian potential of cocoa is 850,000 tons.