On April 17, 2022, the Programme for Granting Subsidies to Farmers held its 4th session of the steering committee under the leadership of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development , Gabriel Mbairobé.
The meeting which took place in Yaounde focused mainly on the subsidies to be granted to producers in the cocoa and coffee sector for the year 2023. This is through the producers’ window (a mechanism launched in 2021 which should enable producers of the sectors concerned, from the different agricultural basins to come into possession of government subsidies on a mass or à la carte basis, editor’s note).This subsidy is deemed necessary due to the global economic context hit by several crises whose repercussions are also felt in Cameroon.
In order to raise the profile of these two sectors, the producers’ window aims to increase national cocoa production to 640,000 tonnes by 2030. As for coffee, the plan is to reach 160,000 tonnes over the same period. It is on this basis that the budget of 6.5 billion CFA francs will be released as funding for the current year.
This amount, which tops to 1 billion CFA francs in absolute value and 13.3% in relative value compared to the 7.5 billion CFA francs injected in 2022, will be divided into two main parts: 5.2 billion CFA francs for cocoa and 1.3 billion CFA francs for coffee. It will be distributed to producers via subsidies in two categories: subsidies for plant material, fertilisers and pesticides, and subsidies for agricultural production equipment.
Author : Meuli Youta