Rescue South West from smoky cocoa

The tendency for the cement to crack and allow smoke into cocoa beans is a problem that also requires a heavy demand for fuel wood. This is worsened by the fact that the peak season for cocoa in the region is from June to November at the peak of the rainy season.

The cement drying platform under which fire is lit usually cracks under the intense heat allowing smoke into cocoa. To dry a few bags in cement ovens that are now outdated but still in use by some farmers. They use truckloads of fuel wood to dry insignificant quantities that if dried in Samoa ovens, farmers will use less and have high quality cocoa that will fetch more money.

Unlike the Samoa ovens, the cement ovens with neither firesides nor chimney, heat cracks the cement deck allowing smoke into the drying beans. As a result of pressure from buyers farmers in the region are in desperate need of funding for Samoa ovens. The construction of a good standard Samoa oven today is over 2million francs. According to experts, the cost of the flue alone and the chimney are the most costly parts making the cost of an oven moved from 400000 francs to 900000 francs far above what many farmers can afford.

Farmers have described government efforts as insufficient. The situation was so bad that the Ministry of Commerce with the cocoa board made delayed efforts while the ACEFA project funded some few Samoa ovens. Samoa ovens were first constructed in the region in 1996 under the EU/Cameroon project.

The over 1400 ovens have long deteriorated and the situation of smoky cocoa from the country reached a crises stage in 2012 when 2000 tons of cocoa exported to Europe were sent back because of the bad quality. Since then both farmers and the government have resorted to improving the situation but the lack of standard ovens is the major problem.

“The government should increase the number of ovens; else we are in for trouble”, the President of Buba Cocoa farmers’ union, Fokou Engilbert told TFV when asked what could be done to remedy the situation.

To Kamgwa Richard who worked with the EU Samoa oven project in the South West, the Samoa ovens are bad and government needs to step in with a big project because the cost is higher than most farmers.

Cocoa farmers ignore good practices The disorder in the buying and selling of cocoa in most areas in Cameroon is encouraging some farmers to ignore good practices. Some of the farmers say whether they treat the cocoa well or not they will still sell, so no need taking pains to treat cocoa differently when the buyer will pay almost the same price.

This category of farmers do not care about quality given that even before producing the cocoa they had already borrowed money from unscrupulous licensed buying agents (LBA) who care little about quality.

These LBAs have resisted the open cocoa markets in many areas in the South West since they see organized markets as a threat to their profits. Since they are still buying cocoa, some farmers told TFV they don’t boarder themselves because they will still have a market with their LBAs.

When the government declared that all cocoa must be marketed in the open cocoa market so that worst grades will be rejected there was a sigh of relief that farmers who have refused to see reason in producing quality cocoa must change.

The government, precisely the ministry of commerce seems to have abandoned the application of the good decision given that in most areas, farmers do not even want to go to the markets.

Years after the ministerial decision, only a few areas like Buba in Tombel sub division have organized cocoa markets and their good quality cocoa has always attracted very good prices from buyers which they call from Douala whenever they have cocoa.

According to Fokou Engilbert, the President of Buba Cocoa farmers, they always harvested and dried their cocoa at the same period, gathered it for the market and invited buyers from Douala who are always interested in buying at the world market price because of the good quality cocoa they produce.

According to this cocoa farmer, Buba has only 25 Samoa ovens and need more to be sure of their cocoa given that the peak season for cocoa there is in the rainy season.

According to Kamgwa Richard, an Agric technician who worked with the EU oven project in 1996, some farmers did not take the oven issue seriously. He regretted that some farmers do not care much about the quality of their cocoa because they feel that whether good or bad the LBAs from whom they borrowed money during the cocoa off-season will buy.

According to Onembeh Alphonse Fonjia, a cocoa farmer in Bolifamba who owns a slab oven made of cement and rods, he would have loved to earn a Samoa oven to improve the quality of his cocoa but the price of the drum and the chimney is too high for him. The cocoa farmer however says he is aware of the dangers of producing smoky cocoa and has decided to get some local steel sheets to make his Samoa drum and chimney which he will install before harvesting his cocoa this year. The farmer regrets that because of the cost of inputs and treatment of cocoa, worsened by low prices, few farmers can install Samoa ovens in their farms because of the high cost.

In the days of the National Produce Marketing Board, before the liberalization of the cocoa and coffee sector, there was quality control because there was only one outlet. The produce was either bought or rejected if the quality was too low. So every farmer did his best to get the good price as an incentive. Also the board reserve some money so that cocoa and coffee could be bought at the same price even when there was a drastic drop in the world market.

When the board was dissolved many affiliated cooperatives did not received their reserves from the board. There was no compensation from the government to strengthen the cooperatives. Coupled with poor management and a bad start up in a liberalized era, many of the cooperatives could not stand on their feet and farmers interpreted the liberalization as a way for them to cause disorder.

The LBAs developed and now took over from most of the cooperatives and started loaning money in exchange for harvest to the miserable farmers. Rather helping the farmers, most of the LBAs now resorted to exploiting the poor farmers who had nowhere to go for farm loans as ‘Credit Agricole’ and affiliates went bankrupt.