Dr Michael Njume Ebong
Coffee sector revival strategy: The Cameroon coffee sector has been in relentless meltdown since market and price liberalization of the country’s agricultural commodity sector some three decades ago. For reasons hard to explain, the coffee crop has been the most negatively impacted by these commodity market deregulation measures, with coffee production plunging by almost 80% between 1990 and 2017, as shown in figure 1 below. This is a regression magnitude not recorded for any other crop since 1990. Alarmed by the serious economic implications of this trend, particularly for the poor coffee growers, the government adopted in 2010 a coffee sector revival action plan officially christened “Cameroon Coffee Sector Development Strategy: 2010-2015”. Formulation and adoption of the strategy involved the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER); the Ministry of Trade (MINCOMMERCE); the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation (MINRESI); the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (ONCC); the Cocoa and Coffee Inter-professional Board (CICC); the Cocoa and Coffee Development Fund (FODECC); and private sector coffee value-chain operators (producers, cooperatives, millers, roasters; traders, and exporters). Equally impressive was the line-up and credibility heft of the international development partners supporting the strategy, notably the World Bank; European Union through the ACP Agricultural Commodities Programme; International Trade Centre (ITC); Common Fund for Commodities (CFC); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This sheer constellation of the domestic and international partners thus involved in a collaborative effort to salvage the Cameroon coffee sector left no doubt about the bright prospects of re-launching it on a decisive recovery path.
Source: Coffee Sector Development Strategy
The main objectives of the strategy were to: (a) improve sector performance at all levels of the value chain, from research to consumption, through production, marketing (internal and external), processing and promotion; (b) facilitate the development of prioritized implementation activities; and (c) integrate dynamic progress measurements for the follow-up of the execution of the implementation plan. The strategy was additionally designed to enable policy makers concerned to better plan and coordinate the various sector interventions that would improve competitiveness of the sector. Apart from public services, the strategy targeted approximately three million potential beneficiaries operating in the domestic coffee value chain, with coffee farmers representing approximately 2.8 million of the total.
Strengths of the Cameroon coffee sector: These include, as identified in the strategy: (a) fertile soil and an ideal climate for coffee growing; (b) farm expansion possibilities; (c) an active and young population; (d) a long tradition of coffee production and a good knowledge of the product by the producers; (e) a diverse production (Arabica and Robusta); (f) good product processing services in the production zones; (g) good handling services at port level in Douala (warehouses, warehouse receipt etc); (h) an intrinsic quality appreciated by markets; and (i) faithful customers, notably in Europe.
Weaknesses of the sector identified by the strategy include:
Research: a halt to research on coffee; the serious reduction in existing germ-plasm collections due to inadequate care; insufficient co-operation with the international research networks.
Production: scarcity and high cost of inputs; debatable quality of imported inputs; unreliable production and seedling multiplication services; inadequate efforts to regenerate old plantations; small size and low productivity of plantations; limited diversification of producer income; ageing growers and lack of incentives for young growers; the absence of strong and structured producer organizations: lack of technical equipment at all levels of the value chain, and in particular of the washing and pulping stations; insufficient, and in some cases, no infrastructure (stores); insufficient extension of the best growing methods and use of chemical inputs.
Internal marketing: no information system covering all production regions and all activities of the sector; no market centres or suitable equipment; inadequate national norms aligned with developments in the international market; limited knowledge of producers of quality control and liquoring; lack of awareness of marketing rules and techniques; door-to-door purchasing by buyers; difficulty in accessing financing.
External marketing: the down-grading and virtual disappearance of ‘Origine Cameroun’; lack of buyers’ trust; no strategy for approaching the market; the systematic positioning of Cameroon coffee as bottom-of-the-range; promotion not sufficiently dynamic.
Market research and data on consumption.
Expected strategy outcomes: The strategy was to create a dynamic towards improved productivity and a more professional approach to the markets, enabling the sector “to create wealth in the next five years which will increase the incomes of the stakeholders and of their families, will create new jobs and will develop the necessary activities/services for the good development of the sector”.
Funding the strategy: The strategy implementation budget amounted to 24.5 billion FCFA, of which 8 billion FCFA consisted of programmes and projects ongoing in 2010 when the strategy was adopted, while 16.5 billion FCFA were to be mobilized mostly from international development partners. It is indeed noteworthy that the strategy financing plan included (a) precious little of State funding for the strategy; and (b) hardly no direct allocation to strengthening coffee farmer cooperative societies which are to the farmers what public corporations are to the State.
Strategy targets and actual performance at end of strategy period in the 2014-2015 are illustrated in figure 2. Whereas total coffee production (Robusta and Arabica) was expected to rise during the strategy period from 40,000 tonnes to 125,000 tonnes, production actually dropped instead to 24,000 tonnes during the 2014-2015 coffee campaign season. It was not clear how the strategy was being implemented on the ground and by whom. The strategy actually evolved as though it lacked an institutional parent and driver, Ministerial or otherwise, to foster its implementation and coordination at all levels. One pilot innovative project on the valorization of coffee produced in Cameroon (“washed coffee”) initiated during the strategy period failed to extend beyond its 2010-2012 pilot phase, for unknown reasons. Judging from sector performance during the five years covered by the strategy, the most that can be said is that it was mostly a bureaucratic exercise unhinged from the harsh reality of the rural coffee farming community. That certainly explains the statistical verdict on the strategy outcome: not the 125’000 tonnes of coffee production targeted by 2015, but less than 30’000 tonnes actually produced. A crucial point flagged in the strategy document is that of productivity. “The competitiveness of Cameroonian coffee comes from improved productivity accompanied by the reduction of production costs. This is essential to enable the coffee grower to live off his farm even during the times when the market is at low price…. In the global context of growth of coffee consumption, productivity remains one of the big challenges. According to statistics, the coffee grower in Cameroon produces approximately 300 kg of green coffee (Robusta and Arabica) per hectare. The average per hectare in Vietnam is approximately 2.500 kg. In Brazil, outputs can go up to 6.000 kg per hectare for Robusta. For Arabica, the Brazilian average is about 1.150 kg per hectare”.
The strategy document further observes that the countries where coffee production is increasing are those where the producers receive between 80 and 90% of the FOB price of the product”.
Meanwhile, in Cameroon, it’s hard to guess-estimate the percentage of the FOB price actually received by the coffee farmer in any given campaign season due to the chaos currently prevailing in the sector and its exorbitant institutional costs.
