New Generation Cocoa to expand to parts of Africa

New Generation has teamed up the Interprofessional Council Program of Cocoa and Coffee (CICC) of Cameroon to rejuvenate both the production force and cocoa plantations in the country.

As a result, the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) plans to expand to other cocoa-producing countries in Africa, announced Omer Gatien Maledy on Commodafrica.

The executive secretary of the CICC said having provided funding of 125,000 dollars (about 62 million FCFA) to the CICC in December 2014 to support the New Generation program, the WCF has requested and obtained authorization to implement this program in other cocoa producing countries in Africa from the cocoa-coffee interprofession Cameroon.

Presented by some experts as the most innovative project in the cocoa sector in recent years, New Generation has also been emulated within the EU Commission.

Mr. Maledy, the EU has shown a lot of interest in the integration of young people in cocoa farming program, which could be an excellent palliative for the migration to Europe of young African cocoa and coffee producing countries.

On the occasion of the Expo Milan 2015, the CICC launched a program aimed at young people in the Diaspora, offering them the cocoa growing as a project back home. Provisions will be made in terms of equipment for the New Generation program for support. This return to the country could do much good to European countries, where immigration is increasingly becoming uncontainable.

Launched three years ago, the New Generation program currently oversees 1,000 young people and aims to cross the bar of 3,000 young each year. Over 3 years, this program has already created 1,335 hectares of cocoa.

New Generation aims at providing young people from training centers in the country's agricultureto start growing cocoa as long as they have the land and acquire three hectares of cocoa during the 3-year of their supervision by the cocoa-coffee interprofession. BRM