This innovation is intended to better support cocoa and coffee producers at all stages of the value chain.

The cocoa and coffee sectors provide essential foreign currency for trade and occupy a key place in the national economy. And the Cameroonian government is not short of initiatives to benefit them, the objective being that they remain competitive. This is why a point of honour is placed on technical and material support, for increased and quality production, which would guarantee substantial income and better living conditions for producers.

A mission of sensitization, explanation and appropriation

In this respect, the Producers’ Desk appears to be the tool of choice for the revival of the sectors. Set up by the Cocoa and Coffee Development Fund (FODECC), its launch is scheduled for 8 July 2021. To achieve this, Samuel Donatien NENGUE, the CCODEF Administrator, conducted a mission of sensitization, explanation and appropriation with the stakeholders of the sector as well as intense negotiations with key partners such as producers, agro-dealers, mobile phone operators, banks and microfinance institutions.

These meetings made it possible to note the enthusiasm of the actors, after they had perceived the stakes and the relevance of the mechanism. Everyone benefits from it. Whether it is the agro-dealers whose market is perfectly regulated, the banks and microfinance institutions that have access to new niches or the producers whose structuring and geolocation, following identification in the Producers’ Window, are now assets for strengthening productivity.

The need to increase production quantitatively and qualitatively

It should be remembered that this second counter is the result of the unanimous dissatisfaction of stakeholders in the cocoa and coffee sectors who denounced the unorthodox management of the traditional counter and the chronic lack of coordination of initiatives.

Producers and public authorities agree on the need to increase production quantitatively and qualitatively, in order to invest in new, more remunerative markets and thus impact on the standard of living of producers. It is in this perspective that the Government has initiated the reform of direct support subsidies in Agriculture, through Order N°068/PM of 28 August 2019 approving and making enforceable the Manual of procedure for granting subsidies for agricultural inputs and equipment in Cameroon.

This order is the institutional framework applicable to agricultural subsidies in general, beyond the cocoa and coffee sectors. The CCODEF has adopted the Operational Manual of the Producers’ Desk at the 107th session of the Management Committee on 12 August 2020.

Nina ONGBEHOCK