Nouvelles

The celebration was highlighted by an exhibition of high yielding cocoa seedlings, cocoa products and a wide variety of chocolates produced from the cocoa bean.

During the launch Luc Mbarga Atangana asserted that cocoa is an important cash crop that pulls foreign currency into the national economy.

He said cocoa has enabled generations of small farmers to build assets and invest in their children’s education and, at the same time, it has been an important source of government revenues and exchange earnings.

Consequently, there is an urgent need to put in place a national policy for the transformation and consumption of cocoa in Cameroon in order to boost production.

The minister expressed concern at the fact that, though the sixth largest producer of cocoa in the world, most farmers in Cameroon still do not realise the economic fall outs of increased production.

According to the most recent statistics, 205 thousand tons of cocoa was produced in 2008, of this only 30 thousand tons was transformed locally.

According to projections, if an efficient policy is put in place, product shall skyrocket to 400 thousand tons by 2015.

Ebong Robinson