EITD Research
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Up to 70% of Cameroon's working population (which is increasing) continues to find employment in agriculture. But, productivity in the farms is low and declining. The produce is far from being homogenous and much of it (more than 36%) is often left to waste and rut, unprocessed. The raw materials of the few non-agricultural industries, including breweries in Cameroon, are not supplied in any significant way by Cameroon agriculture. Cameroon's formal educational system curriculum is yet to accommodate the country's agricultural identity in an industrial sense. Volatile prices characterize trade in Cameroon agricultural produce. Farm incomes are unstable, resulting in unreliable surpluses to spend on non-agricultural industry goods and/or services. The bulk of Cameroon farmer activity doesn't just appear reduced to subsistence levels. Much of it degrades the environment, ominously. Such trends promise disaster for the country's welfare, peace and stability. EITD Research has long been working on these issues and more. The Institute has produced and published a number of policy studies situating agriculture in Cameroon's macro-economy, advocating a public policy for agriculture and an agricultural agenda for fiscal affairs in Cameroon. The institute also carries out work on the processing of traditional grassroots staples such as cocoyam, cassava, yams, plantains and fruits. It provides data for commercializing the staples in nutritionally balanced conservable forms, employing technologies with minimal impacts on desired consumer tastes. Also, compared to farming systems developed in research stations by scientists, traditional agriculture offers several economic and ecological advantages. The modern trend has, however, been against traditional agriculture, which has even been referred to as 'primitive'. We are working to counter this regressive trend with clear dispassionate action oriented programmes to help demonstrate, decisively, traditional agriculture in modern times, as highly productive and sophisticated enterprises and industries. One of the modern areas in traditional agriculture is mechanization. EITD Research is already circulating a concept paper for the mechanization of traditional agriculture. |
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