(Business in Cameroon) - The Interprofessional Council of Cocoa and Coffee (CICC) announced it has selected 74 women to be empowered in the eastern region under its "Rural Women in Cocoa" program. The beneficiaries will receive technical assistance for the creation of 74 ha of cocoa plantations, one ha each.

The program was launched on June 1, 2021, in the locality of Ihund, in the department of Sanaga Maritime (Littoral region). "This initiative aims to help women living in rural areas, where poverty and precariousness are endemic, to be economically independent, especially since they bear much of the family burden: cultivating the field, feeding the family, and taking care of the children [...],” explains the CICC.

In addition to transforming rural women into real agricultural entrepreneurs earning income from cocoa cultivation, the CICC program should contribute, in the midterm, to increasing national cocoa production.

As a reminder, to rejuvenate the aging workforce in the sector, CICC launched a program called the New Generation in 2012. Seven years into its implementation, the program allowed the integration and mentoring of more than 1,520 young people (including 267 girls) into cocoa farming. According to the cocoa-coffee agency, the trainees have established more than 2,500 hectares of new cocoa farms in the country's production basins.

BRM