The Minister of Trade met with businessmen operating in the different food sectors on monday to discuss the situation in the different markets.
Markets in Cameroon are recording increases in the demand for basic foodstuffs like eggs, chicken, sugar, wheat flour, milk and palm oil. The high prices do not match the supply inspite of importations and incentives for local production from government.
To understand what was going on in the markets, the Minister of Trade, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, chaired separate meetings with producers and distributors in the presence of consumer associations, at the conference room of his Ministry, on monday.
During the first meeting with stakeholders in the poultry sector, the Minister sought to understand the current shortage of eggs and chicken reported in the markets. The President of the Poultry Farmers Interprofessional body, Ahmadou Moussa, explained that they had tuned production during the July-September period to low demand levels registered in previous years and focused more on increasing supply during the end of year feasts period where demand is generally high. “The current increase in demand has taken us by surprise and the earliest period we could adjust supply will be in three weeks,” he said. He pleaded with the Minister to facilitate the implementation of the agreement signed to subsidise the poultry sector in 2008 because it could boost production from 550,000 chickens per week expected in October to 800,000 chickens per week. He also explained difficulties faced by poultry farmers to supply at the reference price of FCFA 2,200 per chicken weighing 2 kg, as instructed by the Minister of Trade. Furthermore, the price of maize at FCFA 150 per kg affected production while poor transportation infrastructure often resulted to deaths of chicken on their way to different markets nationwide. The President of the Cameroon Consumers’ League, Kamgaing Delors Magellain, emphasised that the supply of eggs be ameliorated because a high number of unemployed young Cameroonians had adopted eggs as their staple.
