Some 50 stakeholders of Cameroon’s cocoa and coffee sectors have met in Kumba (Meme Division) to clean up internal marketing of the produce, assess its 2011/2012 season, anticipate a better functioning of local marketing committees, and prepare the 2012/2013 campaign. To realise their objective, administrative and municipal authorities, buyers, exporters, and officials of the Ministries of Trade and Agriculture and Rural Development joined producers, on July 4 - 5, to brainstorm on the sector that remains Cameroon’s economic life-wire.
At the Kumba meeting, Fonkechiang Valentin, representing the President of the Cocoa and Coffee Inter-professional Council, clarified that the current evaluation programme of the 2011/2012 produce season that started in Monatele last June 20 would help to raise pertinent marketing problems encountered at local levels during the on-going campaign in order to provide preventive solutions. He reminded producers of the increasingly pressing requirements from industries for quality and identity of produce marketed citing other requirements of certification, maximum limits of pesticides residues and consequent toxins in produce, opacity in commercial transactions, absence of purchase declaration and the incoherent levies imposed by local Councils at various passing points.
One of the major outcomes of the Kumba meeting was the recommendation that cocoa price-hints to producers and buyers should henceforth be specific on the various produce grades. Other resolutions include the call on administrative heads to provide logistic and protective support to the sector, dealers to respect sector laws, the establishment of a proper list of producers and buyers who should belong to independent financial institutions.
Both Monatele and Kumba come-together were co-sponsored by the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (NCCB) and the Cocoa and Coffee Inter-Professional Council (CCIC).
