Boost maize production or face food crisis, local NGO warns

Still saddled with high food prices, most Cameroonians are turning to maize as the most affordable staple. But a local NGO says a combination of increasing demand and high production costs - allegedly complicated by embezzlement – could trigger severe food insecurity.



A local NGO is calling on the government to help boost maize production, warning in a recent report: “Cameroon will see its most grave food crisis ever in 2009” unless the country increases production by 120,000 tonnes. The figure is based on Agriculture Ministry estimations of national food needs, a ministry official confirmed.



The Citizens’ Association for the Defence of Collective Interests (ACDIC) said in its report: “If nothing is done to hike the production of maize, the entire country will suffer further increases in the cost of living, with a strong likelihood of more food riots.”



An Agriculture Ministry official is also worried. “We have been calling this to the government’s attention for many months now,” Sikapin Paul, coordinator of the ministry’s maize programme, told IRIN.



In February some 40 people died in Cameroon in riots triggered in part by the high cost of living.



The government subsidises maize production but experts say the support falls far short of needs. Overall the government allocates 2.4 percent of the national budget to the Agriculture Ministry; the budget covers the ministry's operations and agriculture projects.



The most widely cultivated cereal in Cameroon, maize is consumed regularly by about 12 million people or two-thirds of the population.



The price of maize has doubled over the past year, to about 230 CFA francs (47 US cents) per kilogram.



Given that the prices of most foods have gone up, maize remains among the most affordable staples for families. “I prefer to buy 2kg of maize, which is enough to make a meal for four people, rather than 500 CFA francs ($1) worth of potatoes,” homemaker Damen Nicole told IRIN.



Animal feed



Maize also makes up 70 percent of feed for poultry.



The demand for animal feed shot up this year, after poultry production - which had plummeted because of a bird flu scare in 2006 - resumed in March. ACDIC said the demand for maize for poultry feed shot up 40 percent in less than a year.

Photo: Reinnier Kazé/IRIN

A man carrying a sack of maize in Cameroon's commercial capital Douala

Some poultry farmers have had to slaughter some of their animals because they can no longer feed them. “The number of chickens at my farm has gone down 30 percent,” Douala-based poultry farmer Djeukeu Patrice told IRIN. “With the same level of revenue I can no longer afford to feed as many as before.”



ACDIC said maize was the main source of income for more than three million small-scale farmers in Cameroon. But, the group said that with the high cost of fertilisers and pesticides and the lack of modern equipment, farmers’ revenues from maize were meagre.



Corruption?



The fraudulent use of agricultural funds was further squeezing resources for maize producers, the local NGO charged in its report.



The group alleged that of 805 million CFA francs ($1.6 million) in subsidies for maize production for 2008, 62 percent had been misappropriated by employees of the Agriculture Ministry.



ACDIC said it investigated a list of recipients and learned that some of the groups on the list did not exist, while others received less than stated in government records. “Certain civil servants in the Agriculture Ministry created fictional [cooperatives] to divert these funds,” said Bernard Njonga, the ACDIC president.



The Agriculture Ministry denies the charge. “These are false and offensive allegations,” Sikapin told IRIN.



On 11 December security forces arrested and detained for several hours Njonga and several other activists who had marched in the capital, Yaoundé, to protest against corruption in the Agriculture Ministry.



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