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Cocoa Prices Soar to Record Highs Amid Cameroon’s Conflict-Driven Supply Crisis
June 4, 2024
CategoryAfrica Central
Content TypePackage
LanguageEnglish
Transcript/Script((INTRO))
The world market's enormous demand for cocoa has driven up its price to an all-time high, but there isn't enough of the commodity to sell in Cameroon's Southwest region, formerly the nation's major cocoa production basin. This is due to an armed conflict rocking the Northwest and Southwest, the country’s two English-speaking regions, since 2017, forcing several farmers to relocate. As Njodzeka Danhatu reports from Buea, Southwest region of Cameroon, some farmers are now beginning to return.
[[Video: Tifu in her tiny room, parks dresses, dries some outside, arranges firewood she sells for a living]]
((NARRATOR))
For the past five years, Tifu Victorine and her family have been seeking refuge in Buea, the capital of Cameroon’s Southwest region. She was a cocoa farmer in Muyuka, a locality located around 25 kilometres from the city of Buea and provided for her family of five from the crops. But when conflict broke out, her farm and her home were destroyed, causing her and her family to evacuate to Buea, where a relative calm reigns. She feels bad that the prices of cocoa have surged and wishes she could have her life back.
((Tifu Victorine, Cocoa farmer))((Female, in English))
“I almost lost my life when this thing started. Now like this, I have given up. I cannot continue to put my mind while I cannot go there. So that is the reason. I am hearing the price, but I don’t want to put my mind on that price, because if I put my mind, I will not be able to go there. I don’t have the farm again. So, I just shed tears inside me and stay.”
[[Video: Enyeh leaves his house to the farm, clears down the grass and tries to arrange cocoa trees]]
((NARRATOR))
Due to the recent rise in cocoa prices, some farmers are returning quickly to farms they had long since abandoned. Sekiss Enyeh is attempting to renovate his existing farms in the southwest village of Mundoni, with plans to establish new ones in the hopes that cocoa prices will rise even more.
((Sekiss Enyeh, Cocoa farmer))((Male, in English))
“There are some farms I abandoned because of the low price and the price of the chemical when I discovered [that] my input and the output is not equal. I was like losing. So those farms immediately this price started rising last year. I went to those farms, and I did everything necessary to boom them up.”
((PTC))
((Njodzeka Danhatu, VOA))((Male, in English))
As a result of the ongoing conflict in Cameroon’s southwest, several farmers have relocated. Now, the region that used to produce 43 percent of cocoa, the largest in the nation, can barely make half that amount today.
[[Video: Cocoa parked in store and some being dried outside]]
((NARRATOR))
According to Business in Cameroon, an online news site, in the 2022-2023 farming season, Cameroon experienced a decline of 11.2 percent in cocoa production. Insecurity in its Southwest region is partly to blame. According to the Cameroonian National Cocoa and Coffee Council, over five hundred thousand people rely on cocoa earnings for livelihoods. A kilogram of cocoa used to sell for one US dollar. It sells at nine US dollars today, the highest the Central African nation has ever seen. The government is giving local farmers advice on how to spend the money from available cocoa beans to combat poverty.
((Jackson Ntapi, Southwest Regional Delegate, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development))((Male, in English))
“We have discovered that an increase in cocoa price is not equal to an increase in the livelihood of farmers. People can have money, marry many wives, and start drinking and getting drunk. They don’t invest in their farms, which is going to create an uncertain future because the price of cocoa can go down and their livelihood will not improve. So, we want to work with cocoa cooperatives to reach out to farmers on how they can develop security funds, or we call them revolving funds. Now that the price is good, what can we set aside so that we buy our pesticides in bulk, we buy fertilizer in bulk, we buy equipment in bulk, so that even if the price reduces, we already have a running capital that will enable us to maintain a certain standard of living.”
[[Video: Cocoa farm being revamped and farmer coming back farmer]]
((NARRATOR))
The government says since the start of 2024, cocoa production in the region is picking up and going back to the pre-crisis level because of the massive return of farmers to farms. They hope that farmers will invest in their farms and the region will soon regain its leading position at the national level.
Njodzeka Danhatu, VOA News, Bureau, Cameroon.
NewsML Media TopicsArts, Culture, Entertainment and Media
