Boosting Cocoa/Coffee production:

Gov’t provides 700 Bags of fertilisers for Meme farmers

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Kumba

Bags of fertilisers donated to Kumba farmers

Farmers in some 29 farmer cooperatives in Kumba, chief town of Meme Division, have been donated 700 bags of fertilizers worth over FCFA 16 Million by the Support Project for the Use of Fertilisers in the Cocoa/Coffee Sub Sectors (PAUEF2CII). The donation is aimed to help the farmers to improve on the quality and quantity of their output in the 2017 farming season.

                The over 140 farmers selected from 29 cooperatives happily received the donation at the Divisional Delegation of Agriculture for Meme on Thursday September 7, 2017. 

                According to Fon Stanley, PAUEF2CII Charge' de Mission for Littoral and Southwest Regions, the donation falls under government's objective and strategy of producing 600 000 tons of cocoa and coffee by 2020. He noted that a part of the fertiliser donations government has also instituted plans like the opening of new farms and supply of chemicals like pesticides to protect the produce against the black pot disease.

                Quizzed on the criteria of selection for such donation, the Littoral and Southwest PAUEF2CII Charge' de Mission noted that the fertilisers are given to farmer cooperatives and not CIGs because of the OHADA law which gives priority to cooperatives. He added that with cooperatives there is a greater chance for accountability and strict follow up of such donations unlike with CIGs.

                He further explained that the fertilisers are given to selected five individuals in any of the chosen 29 cooperatives who have been identified as farmers and not the entire group in order for the beneficiary to fill the impact of the inputs unlike when many people are given it to share.

                In order to better follow up such goodwill gestures by government the Fon Stanley explained that the Divisional Delegation of agriculture and the sub delegations will ensure strict follow up to see into it that the farmers use the fertilisers for the cocoa/coffee farms and nothing else. He added that such follow ups will include provision of certain forms that the farmers will fill at each stage of the production all aimed at monitoring their farms in order to get the tangible results of the increase as a result of the donations.

                Asked if the fertilisers are not expired products which government is giving to farmers, the Charge' de mission revealed that the fertilisers were produced in the month of September 2016 and will expire in September 2018. He revealed even the donations is very timely as it meets up with late September early October when fertilisers are been put in the farms by farmers.