(Business in Cameroon) - In the coming days, the Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Irad) will launch the free distribution of 50,000 cashew trees in the three northern regions of Cameroon, official sources reveal.

These 50,000 plants are part of the 500,000 being produced in the different centers of IRAD, the research center whose aim is to grow 10 million of these trees (to be distributed to Cameroonian cashew growers for free) by 2021. The aim of this operation is to create 100,000 hectares of cashew fields in the country.

To implement this project, which aims at making Cameroon the leading cashew producer in the world in the coming years, Cameroon’s president issued a prescription for CFA1.5 billion to be provided for the production, IRAD reveals.

Through this project, the government is thus paving the way for the development of a second cash crop in the three northern regions (North, Far-north, and Adamaoua) whose climate is appropriate for cashew (suitable for dry seasons) but are only producing cotton.

Let’s note that Cameroon started producing cashew in 1975, about the same time as Côte d’Ivoire. Nowadays, however, it only produces about 33 tons yearly (thanks namely to Gic Ribaou, a group of passionate people who, for years now, have been trying to keep the production alive in the North) while Côte d’Ivoire is the world leading producer.  

Indeed, according to official sources, in the framework of a reforestation campaign in Sanguéré, not so far from Garoua, the first cashew trees were planted in Cameroon in 1975. According to sources close to the case, the aim was to increase the cashew fields to 10,000 hectares and set a cashew juice production plant as well as sell the cashew nut (since the cashew has two components: the fruit and a nut on its head).   

43 years later, only 650 hectares of cashew fields were effectively developed, including 60 hectares in 2017 thanks to an operation conducted by the ANAFOR (the national agency for support in forestry), explained Marie Hortense Onana, head of the ANAFOR in the North. In the coming years, this agency aims to develop hundreds of hectares of cashew fields in the Sanguéré orchard where Gic Ribaou has also developed a little more than 100 hectares of new plants since 2002.

Therefore, this programme initiated by IRAD is an adequate opportunity for all those actors and the various individuals and institutions  such as SODECOTON interested in planting cashew (because, according to various accounts, the unavailability of the plant was one of the roadblocks to the development of Cashew in Cameroon, apart from the ignorance of the various economic opportunities cashew represents).  

Brice R. Mbodiam