Experts are meeting in Yaounde to strategise on how to introduce the concept in Cameroon.

The practice of shipping out Cameroonian cocoa and coffee in one bundle as if they were of a uniform quality will soon be a thing of the past. Stakeholders in the sector have observed that such marketing is irrational and tantamount to cheating. The argument is that cocoa or coffee from one region rarely have the same properties, hence cannot of necessity be of the same quality. Cocoa and coffee from the South West Region produced around mount Cameroon for instance, is “volcanic cocoa or coffee” and cannot not have the same flavour as that produced in the grassland fields of the West and North West Regions.

These elements are usually ignored in the marketing process. It is against this backdrop that experts from socio-professional organisations, cocoa and coffee institutions, and African Intellectual Property Organisation joined the organisers, the National Cocoa and Coffee Board and the Technical Centre for Agricultural Cooperation to design a way of introducing the Geographic Indicators approach in to the Cameroonian Cocoa and Coffee production chain.

The concept, according to the General Manager of the Cocoa and Coffee Board, Michael Ndoping, will clearly define the origin of each of these products on the international market and ease direct price negotiation. The geographic indication concept entails identifying the origin and quality of a product and giving it its specificities with the aim of negotiating prices that are specific to it, Michael Ndoping told journalists at the opening of the workshop.

“Every region in Cameroon has different soil characteristics and different ecological environment which have an influence on the quality of Cocoa and Coffee”, he said, stating that Coffee produced in Foumban for instance, does not taste the same like coffee produced in Oku. Once the technique of Geographical Identification has been mastered, farmers and exporters can start sending coffee or cocoa from a given area to a specific market where the prices are negotiated between the buyer and the seller, he said.

The farmers through farmer groups are expected to organise themselves after the Yaounde confab in order to master the production itinerary and to have access to a given market which is not controlled by the prices fixed at the level of the international market.