The programme seeks to solve problems like difficult access to farming land, modern and improved farm inputs, low agricultural mechanisation, insufficient funding mechanisms, among others so as to balance socio-economic inequalities like demographic growth rate which surpasses production by 2.9 per cent, urbanisation rate estimated at 4.5 per cent, need for industrial growth and exportation to better the country’s trade balance.
Speaking during the opener of the workshop, the Minister Delegate at MINEPAT, Yaouba Abdoulaye, said the Agropoles programme is in line with the country’s long-term development plan contained in the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper. Studies, he disclosed, show that between 2004 and 2009, importation of food items grew from 850,000 to 1,195,000 tonnes. Maize importation, he stressed, passed from 2,000 to 23,000 tonnes. Reason why there was need to reverse the trend through a programme like Agropoles through which potential agricultural zones and activities that can boost production, processing and sale of plant crops, animal, fisheries and forestry products, can be identified.
According to one of the workshop participants, Manjo Julius, Director of Westend Farm, a cereal production company in the outskirts of Yaounde, the creation of Agroploes is an answer to long years of farmer’s plea that they be brought together to partner with government in maximising the country’s huge agricultural potentials. “The key problems that we need to address are funding and technical know-how. The idea to bring us onboard this programme is laudable as if you finance a large-scale farmer; you are financing everybody because he has the capacity not only to develop his own business but also to turn round and handover some of the technical know-how to help the peasant farmer with his equipment”, he said. Mr Manjo noted that the banking system in the country is poorly equipped to finance agriculture because the country does not have a history of commercial farming, therefore the know-how that permits people to intervene in the system, the banks for example, does not exist. “The government has a role as facilitator and provider of services that cannot be found anywhere. Food security is a problem of sovereignty and only government can provide the funding and know-how we need”, he prayed.
Holding under the theme, “The role of the private sector, notably industrial maize production, in the setting up of Agrospoles”, the over 50 participants are through paper presentations and group discussions, getting abreast with the programme, management of industrial maize production, private financing of rural sector in Cameroon, among others.
