The decision by the government in August, 2009, to tighten cocoa production rules to increase bean quality remains fresh in the mind.

Against the backdrop of the cacophony observed in the cocoa sector, whereby impostors penetrated the market, brandishing fresh cash to poor farmers to enable them release the beans that have not been properly handled, resulting into the export of doubtful quality cocoa, the Minister of Trade, announced a series of regulations to be respected by actors.

According to the decision, all cocoa buyers are expected to each possess a professional card in order to carryout their activities in Cameroon beginning this season that is from August 01, 2009 to July 31, 2010. The professional card to be issued by the Cocoa and Coffee Inter-professional Council (CCIC), is expected to help weed out quacks from the sector, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana stated in the decision signed on August 14, 2009. In effect, the evolution of cocoa production in the country, wherein the set target production of 200,000 tons by 2010 has been achieved an even surpassed by 5,000,000 metric tons of marketable beans, called for further attention.

The whole gamut of actions necessary for giving added value to the product had to be put under control. These cover the whole range of the production chain from plant nursing, planting, harnessing, and pod care to harvesting, fermenting, drying and marketing. In a bid to avoid a situation where buyers flood the countryside and impose rates to ppor farmers, government decided the price of the beans, the decision said, must be negotiated between the buyer and the grower based on the quality of the beans and the reference price fixed by government through its institutions.

Arrangements among buyers to impose a unique price on all farmers have been banned, the decision said, while equally forbidding the practice of mixing cocoa beans of different qualities in stores and warehouses. Door to door buying of the beans has equally been made a thing of the past. Experts in the cocoa sector are quite clear as to how good quality beans can be obtained. These include: fermentation, drying on clay soil or appropriate cemented arena, extracting foreign bodies from the beans, free from smoke and pesticide odour and having a less than 8 percent humidity rate. Cocoa authorities need to respect the market calendar by putting in place “buying committees” on time as well as deploying verification agents in cocoa production basins and appropriate training of actors among others.

That notwithstanding, there are signs government will be pulling in more cocoa processing industries and improving their conditions of work in order to step up local processing by 32 percent, according to Trade Minister in a recent exclusive interview with C.T.

Government is presently pondering on how to make the investment environment attractive to investors in the cocoa processing sector, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, said. This of course could equally include stepping down taxes and customs duties on cocoa processing in-puts.

Cameroon, the world’s fifth producer of Cocoa processes 13 percent of the product and intends to bring the amount up to 45 percent. Processing so far remains in the hands of one major company, SIC-CACAO which bought and processed 26,000 metric tons last year, according to Minister Mbarga Atangana and 25,175 tons according to SIC CACAO.