The National Anti-corruption Agency has begun field visits to protect cocoa farmers against unscrupulous middlemen.

The National Anti-corruption Agency, CONAC has begun a series of field visits, entitled “2010 Cocoa Buying Season Without Corruption” to protect cocoa farmers against unscrupulous middlemen. According to a recent release by the agency, the campaign that began on October 5, 2010 in the Lekie Division of Centre Region was the sequel to complaints by many cocoa farmers of harassment/or intimidation and bad faith on the part of cocoa merchants and other difficulties encountered in receiving due prices for their produce.

Through the campaign, CONAC aims at encouraging cocoa farmers to resist any attempts by merchants to deprive them of their hard-earned income by immediately reporting any abuses to their office. In this regard, hotlines have been set up to attend all to complaints from victims. The numbers are 22 20 37 32 and 22 20 37 30. The anti-corruption drive, according to CONAC is intended to last throughout the cocoa buying season in Cameroon that generally runs from July to December. It will cover all cocoa producing regions.

Cocoa and coffee farmers have generally lost out to middlemen who tend to recoup almost all the benefits because of the former’s inability to finance the marketing of their produce. Some of the practices to which they are subjected include buying of wet cocoa beans at give-away prices for drying and selling at higher prices later, offering low prices for unharvested cocoa, and bribing officials of local cocoa marketing committees to convince farmers to sell their produce at below prevailing market prices.

In order to protect the interests of farmers, the Ministry of Trade recently set up a National Cocoa/Coffee Market Information Coordinating Office in Douala that sends out regular information on prevailing cocoa and coffee prices to 8 local relay centres so far created in the Centre, East, Littoral, South and West regions. These centres then pass on the information to farmers’ organisations by phone and community radios to enable farmers sell their produce at good prices.

Also recently, the ministry organised a workshop on “Marketing of Cocoa/Coffee: The Role of the Warehouse Receipt System” that held in the coastal resort town of Kribi. The system entails the stocking of agricultural produce in community warehouses for preservation and sale later. In return, the farmer receives a receipt that serves as collateral security to enable them secure a loan to carry out any other income-generating activity while waiting for their produce to be sold when the prices would have appreciated.