Cameroonian Farmers Are Gradually Losing Interest in Coffee Growing

Before the liberalization of the cocoa and coffee sector in 1991, Cameroon's coffee production was fluctuating around 100,000MT per year for both arabica and robusta. For the 2020/2021 coffee season, the country has reached one of its lowest points with a total production of 12,157 MT. By comparison with the 2019/2020 season, this figure represents a 50.7% drop in quantities.

One of the main reasons behind such a situation is a low selling price that makes it difficult for farmers to live decently on coffee farming. Despite government slogans and plans to revamp the sector, most farmers are destroying coffee farms and planting short-term crops such as vegetables, tomatoes, cassava which have proven to be more profitable. Unless a joint public and private initiative are set up to incentivize farmers and bring them back into coffee farming, the country will surely disappear from the list of coffee exporters in a few years.