A prize pool of 2 billion francs to be distributed to producers
This is the leitmotif of the press briefing that the Minister of Commerce Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana granted to the national and international press on Tuesday, April 16 of the year of Lord 2024. It was on the occasion of the start of the same day of phase III of the national campaign for payment of the quality premium to cocoa producers for the periods 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 in a logic of perseverance and continuation of the effort by encouraging and rewarding the most deserving, not to punish or penalize others, but on the contrary to encourage them to do as well, if not better, with the ultimate objective of making all of Cameroon origin a label of excellence. This is a trifle sum of 2 billion of our francs which will thus be made available to these producers for the sale of their cocoa. As a reminder, it was already 790 million CFA francs for the 2017/2018 campaign in phase I and 2,011,292,698 CFA francs for the 2018/2019 and 2019/2010 campaigns counting for phase II.
This announcement was made in the presence of Minader Gabriel Mbairobe, the SG of Mincom Felix Zogo, the president of the ONCC who is also president of the committee responsible for monitoring and payment of the cocoa quality premium to producers, the honorable Lawson Tabot, president of the network of parliamentarians for the development and development of the Cocoa-Coffee and Cotton and fishing sectors; the president of the Interprofessional Cocoa and Coffee Council; the administrator of the cocoa and coffee sector development fund; the executive secretary of the inter-professional cocoa and coffee council. In recent years, Cameroon has joined the Pantheon of the elite of cocoa culture in the world. According to Mincommerce “all this demonstrates the visionary pragmatism of the Head of State Paul BIYA who by instructing a series of measures aimed at responding to the challenges of price volatility on the world market with the establishment of the quality bonus for producers allowed our bean to regain its colors and rise to the roof of the world, both from a quality point of view and from a producer price point of view.
Cameroon says it is ready to face the new European Union regulations on deforestation which will take effect on December 31, 2024 thanks to the agroforestry policy which allows us to preserve our ecosystem.
Phase III runs from April 16 to August 30, 2024 with regard to the identification of beneficiaries and the publication of the lists of winners while the payment of bonuses will take place during the period from October 15 to December 15, 2024 in a concern for total transparency and absolute objectivity in consultation with producer organizers and all stakeholders in the value chain.
For Minader, “it is important to know that the quality approach (in addition to post-harvest treatment) begins with varietal selection, already at the base at the research level and then in the technical itineraries in the agronomic management of production. We do flowering to be able to maintain the productivity of the orchards. We do flowering and fruit set to be able to maintain the productivity of the orchards. We have started the work of densifying the regeneration of the plants because the majority of plantations date back 30 to 40 years. We have densification work per hectare from 603 plants to 1200 to increase the productivity and income of farmers. We are happy to know that the next millionaires would be from rural areas. We have set up a producer window to supply around 6 billion francs along with the partners. We are one of the countries to have organized a conference on agro-ecology because we already practice it. I believe the best is yet to come. The yield is today less than 500kg per hectare, however with the new varieties we can go up to 2 tonnes per hectare. We have developed a savannah cocoa in Mbam and Kim and in Adamaoua, we try to continue our logic of agroforestry and preserve biodiversity ».
Clément Noumsi
コメント