(Business in Cameroon) - The Emergency Programme for the Reviving Coffee Cultivation (Purc-café), officially launched in January 2014 in three productions of zones of Cameroon (West, East and Coastal), after a catastrophic 2012-2013 coffee season (16,000 tonnes produced), did not yield the results expected post-implementation.

According to the CICC, which had requested 780,000 coffee plants for the programme, only 75,000 plants were available to Purc-café last year, which was less than 10% of the amount requested. The programme will be “restructured”. Instead of creating 600 hectares of new coffee plantations per annum, the CICC is now aiming for 300 hectares.

Despite Purc-café’s difficulties, coffee production in Cameroon doubled while in the 2013-2014 season, reaching 32,800 tonnes compared to a little over 16,000 tonnes in the 2012-2013 season. Bolstered by these figures, the country is now aiming to achieve 40,000 tonnes by the close of the 2014-2015.