It is a result of the activities of the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation programme, which second phase of was launched last Tuesday, 24 February.

The Cameroonian 2030 National Strategy Development places great emphasis on agriculture. And the achievement and evolution of the latter requires the involvement of technology in increasing productivity, industrializing the sector and moving Cameroon towards food and nutrition security.

It is in this spirit that the African Development Bank, through its Technologies for Africa’s Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme, organised a two-day workshop with the Cameroonian Ministry of Agriculture under the theme “Towards an enabling environment for the adoption and scaling-up of technologies for agriculture transformation in Cameroon”. An opportunity to share seed development experiences from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya and and outlining proposition for scaling up and replicability in other African countries where fisheries, iron-rich beans, soybean, cassava, maize and rice play an important role in income generation and food security.

According to participants, such as Sali Ndindeng, a rice production expert, there is a need for producers to have access to production income and inputs, coupled with the need to improve agricultural infrastructure. For example, he highlights the use of proboiling, which can improve Cameroon’s milling rate by 5%.

During the workshops, experts insisted on the benefits for the agricultural sector at the national level of harmonising the efforts of all stakeholders to strengthen the sector. For example, Irad, which sells seeds to companies, needs to join forces with producers such as UNVDA and Semry.

Such a rice value chain will accelerate development. This initiative is already underway in the aquaculture sector, where stakeholders are setting up an e-registration process to bring together all stakeholders to share ideas and techniques to feed the whole country, knowing that Cameroon is the largest catfish producer after Nigeria. But local consumers are not yet fully satisfied.

In order to solve this problem, Taat, which supports the development of technologies and seeds for institutions and producers, is working on the vulgarisation of strategies so that the seeds reach local producers and final consumers.