While the influx of visitors is on the rise at the fair village, farmers and cooperatives hustle for funding opportunities.
Small-scale farmers and promoters of agricultural cooperatives are leaving nothing to chance at the Yaounde Conference Centre where the International Exhibition on Agricultural Machinery, IEAMC, has entered the third day. They are discussing funding possibilities that can expand and improve their activities with financial institutions. Agribusiness owners and producers lodged in Hall D are more interested in improving business contacts. They shuttle between Hall D where they showcase their activities and Hall B where they arrange for B-to-Bs. Anastasie Mbarga’s interest is in processing equipment while Jean Paul Etoundi, another farmer, wants machines that can assist him in soil preparation and harvesting. They all expressed satisfaction at contacts already made, hoping it continues that way.
Direct Financial Assistance
Initiators of the jointly-owned Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development and Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industry project, with financing from the French debt-relief programme, C2D, are assisting producers via counselling (improving productivity and incomes) as well as financing producer organisation projects. “We fund only investment projects that generate income,” Ines Wendji told visitors. She stressed that the Programme for the Improvement of Competitiveness of Family Agropastoral Farms assists producer groups and professional agropastoral organisations to have equipment and facilities.
Meanwhile, assistance to Common Initiative Groups ranges from about FCFA 500, 000 to 6 million FCFA, with 16 per cent as counterpart funding. Cooperatives can source from 5 million FCFA to 30 million FCFA, with 30 per cent as counterpart funds. The Cocoa and Coffee Interprofessional Council in the quest to create more awareness on its New Generation project, which supports young farmers and agricultural training centres, is not letting visitors pass by.
Assistance Through Training
Some structures at IEAMC offer technical assistance. Small-scale farmers seeking funding are drilled on how to convince funding institutions with mature business plans. The Agricultural University of Management and Production in Soa near Yaounde, is one such institution. It offers lessons on Rural Science, with focus on production and processing. “We support farmers with business models, plans, feasibility studies and coaching through the setting up of cooperatives,” said the Secretary General, Jules Léa Kengne Notong. He explained that their efforts empower farmers and improve productivity.
On the other hand, staff of the Support Service for Local Initiatives and Development, SAILD, spend hours counselling rural farmers on how to create initiatives that can possibly land them good farm tools that boost yield. SAILD also offers technical assistance on developing local production, processing and commercialisation. Linking farmers to funding partners is primary, with cooperatives and financing institutions trading opportunities. This notwithstanding, the Ministry of Finance is explaining fiscal and customs incentives to investors. A conference organised on the theme; “Fiscal and Customs Incentives for the Agriculture Sector: The April 18, 2013 Act,” focused on modalities for receiving assistance and the procedures of application.
