Digitization as a Way to Increase Effectiveness and Transparency in Cocoa and Coffee Farmers’ Grants

Cameroon government selected a company to implement the digitization of the "Farmers' Desk" program. The pilot phase will kick off with an initial financial input of USD 10.4 million to be distributed among 10,000 cocoa and coffee farmers during the 2021/2022 season. Government authorities intend to increase this support to USD 84 million and reach close to 600,000 farmers by 2030, with the target of producing 600,000 MT of cocoa beans and 160,000 MT of coffee. This digitization comes as a way forward after an audit of the several farmers’ subsidies initiatives which revealed that barely half of the financial allocations reached the real beneficiaries. Yet, the country could not produce up to 300,000 MT of cocoa and 25,000 MT of coffee in 2020. With the reduced number of stakeholders in this current program, it is more likely that the support will reach the real beneficiaries. The expected increase in production coupled with the quality improvement initiatives that are currently going on will make Cameroon origin great again for cocoa and coffee traders.