Members projects

Over the past 25 years production of coffee declined dramatically in Cameroon. From a peak of 120,000Mt in the mid-eighties, the country currently produces only 34,000Mt per year. The bulk of Cameroon's production is Robusta coffee, approximately 30,000Mt, but which viability is under threat. Below a certain available volume of coffee it becomes loss-making for exporters to operate in a sector, and the Cameroon Arabica sector is very close to that threshold.

The project aims to increase available volumes of Arabica coffee and contribute to improvement of living conditions of Arabica farmers. This is to be achieved by doubling productivity of existing farms, establishing farmer organisations through which farmers have better access to local markets and services such as technical advice and credit. To maintain sector viability the project also aims to promote coffee farming among the general population through regular coffee programmes on various local radio stations and by hosting regular coffee events.

To that aim, Olam established a project team of 8 people right in the middle of the Arabica growing area. One of their first activities were to establish a Farmer Field Schools (FFS) programme and to train a total of 70 trainers to run these FFS. Trainers were trained in good agricultural practices and training methodologies. During the first year of FFS, groups were registered as legal entities. From this basis larger groups of about 100 farmers each have been formed. The best of these groups sold 14Mt of green coffee directly to Olam and obtained a 20% higher price. This is expected to serve as an example to other groups.

Aside from access to regular project activities such as training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), benefits of group membership include accessing credit for fertiliser through group membership, marketing coffee, accessing seedlings of disease resistant varieties and participation in production of mushrooms and possible UTZ certification. Overall, we seek to help farmers professionalise their operations.

In 2011, about 70 trainers have been trained in good agricultural practices and in the methodology to facilitate the FFS. In different parts of the project region 52 farmer groups have been established with highly motivated producers, this has resulted in about 16,000 training contacts in the first 2 years of the project. The first GAP manuals have been designed, printed and used in FFS. Six nurseries have been established that have produced about 5,000 seedlings each. This is crucial as farms have aged considerably and current varieties are often not disease resistant, leading to large losses.

Nascent productivity improvements are reported from various sources, but our own data is not yet sufficient to confirm this trend.We expect to know more after the 2011/12 season.