(Business in Cameroon) - The government of Cameroon and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are developing a FCFA 23 billion programme on youth entrepreneurship in the agro-pastoral sector.

The country representative of FIDA in Cameroon, Bernard Hien, made the disclosure in Yaounde on Friday September 20 during a ceremony to present an activity report of an eight-year National Roots and Tubers Development Programme jointly funded by the government of Cameroon and the International Fund for Agricultural Development which officially ended last March 2013.

The Youth entrepreneurship programme in the agro-pastoral sector is to take the relay from the roots and tubers project which caused considerable change both in terms of production, processing and sale of cassava and its byproducts in the country.

The programme, stakeholders said, improved the performance of cassava varieties through their adoption and diffusion in 18,000 households, 62.5 per cent of which were women. The programme also organised farmers into associations, notably the putting in place of 250 cassava farmers associations which later migrated into cooperatives in eight regions of the country. Production also moved from the hitherto 8-10 metric tons per hectare to 25-30 tons per hectare at term. This moved annual national production from two million tons in 2002 to 3.9 million tons in 2011.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Essimi Menye, disclosed during the workshop that since March 2013, government had designed another programme to promote the development and promotion of roots, tubers and plantains. “Cassava has a long list of byproducts that are needed in the market and there are people willing to produce more. The construction of a milling plant is about being completed in Sangmelima to produce starch that will be used by companies. This shows how cassava can give a kicker to a lot of other activities,” the Minister said.

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