(Business in Cameroon) - The Cameroonian Minister of Agriculture, Henri Eyébé Ayissi, officially commissioned on 21 April 2016 in Yagoua, in the Extreme-North region, a rice paddy dehusking unit bought by the Société d’Expansion et de Modernisation de la Riziculture de Yagoua (Semry), we learned from credible sources. This unit of a capacity of 2.5 metric tonnes per hour was delivered by the German company F.H. Shule Muhlenbau Gmbh.

According to Marc Samtana, General Manager of Semry, two new dehusking units ordered from the same equipment manufacturer will be received by end June 2016. This equipment will have a more important dehusking capacity: 5 metric tonnes per hour.

The cost of these investments was not revealed. But, one can recall that Semry is among the public agro-industrial units who received, during 2015, a global envelope slightly in excess of FCfa 6 billion as “rehabilitation resources”. This financing from the State was meant to carry out projects listed in the “master plans” signed with the State, the government had then specified.

As a reminder, the production of Semry fluctuates between 70,000 and 80,000 tons per year, for a national demand estimated at 300,000 tons. Additionally, we learned, due to the lack of processing units, almost 90% of the production from Semry is exported as paddy rice (husked rice) to neighbouring Nigeria, which makes Cameroonian rice even rarer on the market.

Brice R. Mbodiam