Journal du Cameoun learn though official sources that depite this investement these funds have not been able to produce sparkling results.

“The evaluation of the cumulative financing of the first Fodecc window revealed that the balance of the financing, i.e. 39 billion CFA francs spent in fourteen years, does not seem to correlate virtuously with the state of the orchard, the volumes produced and then marketed, the quality of the products marketed and, even more seriously, the standard of living of the producer,” confesses the Fodecc in an official document.

“From these shared observations results the unanimous dissatisfaction of the actors of the cocoa and coffee sectors, and the collective desire to explore other avenues, with a view to better development,” the Fodecc maintains.

This public structure has also just launched a second window, which aims to inject CFAF 50 billion in subsidies into the cocoa and coffee sectors over a period of five years. Estimated at 6.3 billion CFA francs, the first envelope for the 2021-2022 fiscal year began to be distributed in June 2022 to producers in the Melong district, in the Moungo department, Littoral region.

The “guichet producteurs” is the new mechanism that will enable cocoa and/or coffee producers in the country’s various agricultural basins to directly receive government subsidies on a mass . It is a mechanism that will revolutionise the cocoa and coffee sectors by repositioning local farmers at the heart of the sector’s competitiveness, thanks to information of choice and targeted aid,” says Samuel Donatien Nengue, the Fodecc administrator.

One of the main markers of the failure of the development policy of the cocoa-coffee sector in Cameroon is the Plan to revive the sector, adopted by the government on 30 September 2014.

The plan, which was based on increased funding for research, large-scale production and distribution of seedlings produced from improved seeds, comprehensive treatment of the cocoa-coffee orchard, and the creation of new and large plantations, aimed to increase national cocoa bean production to 600,000 tonnes in 2020, and to 185,000 tonnes for coffee (Robusta and Arabica) over the 2015-2020 period.

But in the end, the failure was resounding. Whereas Cameroon had a coffee production of 130,000 tonnes in the 1990s, the country recorded a marketed production of only 12,157 tonnes, all varieties combined, during the 2020-2021 campaign.

Moreover, this volume is down by 50.7% compared to the previous season, according to data compiled by the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (ONCC). The poor performance of the 2020-2021 coffee season even surpasses the 16,142 tonnes of the 2012-2013 season, which was described by coffee industry stakeholders as the worst in “the last 50 years”.

As for cocoa, despite the improvement in local processing, the improvement in the quality of the beans with the setting up of post-harvest processing centres and the training of producers, and the rejuvenation of plantations and the production force thanks to the New Generation programme set up by the interprofession, the volume of production has rarely reached half of the 600,000 tonnes expected At the end of the 2020-2021 season, for example, the country posted a marketed production of 292,471 tonnes, up 12% on the 257,374 tonnes of the previous season, according to ONCC figures.