This is fruit of the 17^th International Conference on Cocoa Research that ended in Yaounde last Saturday October 20.

Cocoa farmers in the country will soon have a new breed of high-yielding species that surmount both the challenges of climate change, pests and diseases. Researchers from the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IRAD) said with the experience gained from the six-day International Conference on Cocoa Research that rounded off in Yaounde last Saturday October 20, coming up with the species that could move the country’s current annual output of about 240,000 metric tons to 350, 000 metric tons by 2015 and 600,000 tons by 2035, was feasible.

According to Dr Kameni Anselme, cocoa researcher with IRAD, “the techniques and tools developed by the international researchers will be directly applied by IRAD, particularly in plant breeding, pest control and soon a new generation of improved cocoa plant material derived from new techniques will be released to farmers.” He said the Yaounde confab which brought together cocoa researchers and other stakeholders to showcase new, appropriate and efficient technologies developed in the respective countries gave room for more reflection. “Cameroon as a nation is taking stock of all the technologies presented in the various fields such as plant genetics, breeding, pest and disease control, extension techniques, cocoa processing and marketing as well as new cocoa products.”

To the President of the international organising committee, Prof. Paul Hadley of the University of Reading, UK, the conference has been a huge step forward for cocoa research across the world. “The crop suffers from many pests and diseases and many scientific advances have been made over the last three years and I think cocoa has a sustainable future. The major outcome from the Yaounde conference is a sustainable future for the cocoa economy, particularly for cocoa producing countries. We must increase productivity, reduce the incidence of pests and diseases and make cocoa important to the population,” he said.

Cameroon’s Minister of Trade, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, prayed that research should be a permanent quest and work on cocoa research should not end with the Yaounde conference. “It was rather a turning point for better days for cocoa. We should make sure that technology is transferred and that the resolutions arrived at in Yaounde serve as a springboard so that when we meet in Peru in 2015 for the 18^th conference, we would be sharing our blessings for the successes we would have recorded,” the Minister noted.