A four-day national conference opened in Yaounde yesterday to discuss family and second-generation agriculture.

 Cameroon is a land of plenty, a production basin for foodstuff in the Central African Sub-region, yet small scale-farmers are still finding it hard to live from their sweat. The challenges are many and the stakes are high. Their mode of farming is subsistence and what is taken to the market is the surplus. Production in most cases lacks processing activity and experts say these and more are stumbling blocks to the development of the sector as government seeks to increase productivity and scale up local processing which has been identified as lacking.

According to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, MINADER, Essimi Menye, Cameroon and its people are built by peasant farmers through their unwavering struggle to produce foodstuff, reason why such small-holder farmers need individual and government support than never. Essimi Menye said at the opening of a four-day national conference holding in Yaounde that the problem of family agriculture in Cameroon  was that of weak financing, the unavailability of sufficient high-yielding seeds, the inability to process   and the lack of infrastructure especially in terms of farm-to-market roads.

The country produces more than 80 per cent of foodstuff in markets. And according to the Country Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation to Cameroon, Mai Moussa Abari, over 90 per cent of foodstuff in the world is produced by small-holder farmers.  

Government is on track and peasant farmers according to Essimi Menye will have to heave a sigh of relief by 2020 when the country hits its target production level. The activity is a base of employment, wealth and secures the wellbeing of the population. 

He explained that, “The Head of State asked for the creation of the agricultural bank to make sure that funding is available for those willing to do business in the sector.” The project is well advanced and MINADER boss stresses that what is at stake now is “to bring high yield seeds and to make sure that farm-to-market roads are built and maintained to facilitate movement.” Holding on the theme, “What government Policy In Support of Family Agriculture to Surmount Challenges of second-generation Agriculture,” experts are focusing on opening up small-holder farmers to embracing this development-oriented concept by drafting a declaration that can act like a framework for sustainable agricultural production and processing.

For four days experts are brainstorming on the forms of family agriculture, the evolution of government policies, the modernisation of products of small-holder famers to meet the stakes of second-generation agriculture and the contribution of donors.  The Minister of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry, Dr Taïga co-chaired the opening ceremony yesterday.