(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroon is planning to create between 50 and 100 ha of wheat as of 2020, the minister of agriculture, Gabriel Mbairobé, said during a visit to Adamaoua in May 2019.

As part of the Wheat Development Strategy, Mr. Mbairobé explained, more than 200 wheat plots are currently under experimentation across the national territory, including the town of Wassande, in the Adamaoua region. This locality is home to the ruins of the Wheat Development Company (Sodéblé), a public company that went bankrupt in the late 1980s.

“We have high altitude and low altitude varieties. Under certain research criteria, we have set up these plots and have already selected four varieties,” explains Clémentine Ananga Messina, the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Agriculture.

The launch of these tests with the support of the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IARAD), it is officially reported, aims to prevent an increase in wheat imports. Along with rice and fish, wheat is one of the main imported items in Cameroon. “We import more than XAF150 billion worth of wheat every year in the form of flour and grain, and also finished and semi-finished products such as cakes, cookies and biscuits,” says the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Agriculture.

BRM