Farmers in Ndom, Littoral Region were last Saturday schooled on best production techniques as well as served seedlings to boost yield. The government of Cameroon, through the Ministry of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts, has given a boost to the production and marketing of ginger in Ndom, Sanaga Maritime Division of the Littoral Region with the objective of improving on the income-generating potentials of the farmers. The Ministry last Saturday June 5, 2010 in a capacity-building workshop at the Ndom Conference Hall schooled over 50 farmers, drawn from farmer organisations in the subdivision, on the best farming techniques. The farmers, under an umbrella association, “Collectif pour le développement des femmes de Ndom (CODEFEN), were drilled on how the ridges could be hoed, the choice of seedlings, how they can be planted and the spacing to ensure a bumper harvest.

Speaking during the workshop, the Secretary General in the Ministry of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts, Marie-Louise Secke Pouka, said statistics show that 84 per cent of Cameroon’s poor live in the rural milieu. Supporting ginger production and marketing, she said, will help the farmers to produce beyond family consumption and the sale of the surplus will plunge them into business creation, the goal of the ministry. “Within the framework of our ministry’s support to the social economy, we put in a place a project to create a ginger production unit in Ndom, supported by the sub programme for poverty reduction”, Mrs Secke Pouka said. The workshop, she added, was fruit of CODEFEN’s application for assistance, through the Ministry’s project and which benefited from support from the government and the United Nations Development Programme. The objective, she said, is to attain annual production of 154 tons of ginger this year.

Besides schooling the farmers on production techniques, Saturday’s workshop equally served as an opportunity to drill the farmers on how to form stable and well structured associations that can easily attract assistance, rules and regulations in a group as well as what each member could put in for success to be attained. The president of CODEFEN, Nwind Hermine née Ngo Bell, on behalf of the group expressed gratitude to the benefactors, starting that the training will greatly enhance the mission of CODEFEN which among others seeks to boost social and economic life of the Ndom woman. Bags of improved, disease-resistant and high-yielding ginger seedlings were served the farmers to attain the 154-ton production this year.