In Ngoketunjia Division of Cameroon’s North West region, a quiet yet powerful agricultural revolution is taking root. For the smallholder farmers of Bamunkumbit, land is not just mere soil, it is their livelihood, their family legacy, and their daily source of nourishment.
However, erratic weather patterns, lingering pests, and dwindling crop yields have cast heavy shadows over local fields in recent years. Recognizing this silent struggle, the Support Humanity Cameroon organization- SUHUCAM stepped up with a message of hope, turning traditional hardship into a compelling story of community resilience and practical empowerment.
Between January 31 and March 27, 2026, SUHUCAM launched a transformative capacity-building programme which focused on banana propagation using the innovative Plants Issus de Fragments de tiges – PIF technique. Financed through the UNCCD-G20 Global Land Initiative Restoration Return Grants under the “Enhancing Community-Led Ecosystem restoration for improved livelihoods in the Ngoketunjia Plateau” project, this initiative was built around a vital premise: empowering local families with low-cost, high-impact skills to reclaim their agricultural independence.
For generations, bananas and plantains have been the beating heart of local food security and culture across the Ngoketunjia area. Yet, as plant diseases spread and traditional planting materials lost their vitality, farmers watched helplessly as demand continuously outstripped their best efforts.
SUHUCAM under the Executive Coordination of Sunday Geoffrey recognized that true landscape restoration begins by giving farmers healthy, disease-free planting materials. By restoring confidence alongside the land, this effort addressed both the urgent need for income and the long-term imperative of climate-smart agriculture.
The training took place at the SUHUCAM nursery in Bamunkumbit-Ndop, drawing over 40 eager farmers together with a dedicated technical team. Divided into two immersive sessions, the programme blended hard scientific facts with shared human experience. The opening sessions provided a safe space where farmers could speak openly about their past crop failures, learn the root causes of low productivity, and discover why clean, healthy sword suckers are essential to turning their fortunes around.
What made the training truly special was its hands-on, deeply engaging nature. Farmers rolled up their sleeves and gathered around the nursery beds, mastering every delicate step of the PIF technique. Guided by patient mentors, they cleaned suckers, removed leaf sheaths, deactivated apical buds, and scarified lateral buds to stimulate rapid growth. Alongside chemical treatments, trainers demonstrated the protective power of common wood ash, an accessible, eco-friendly solution that brought immediate smiles to resource-constrained farmers.
Over the five weeks that followed, field workers and local farmers nurtured the propagators like carefully guarded treasures, ensuring ideal moisture, ventilation, and heat. Their care paid off magnificently: the first cycle alone yielded over 100 thriving young plantlets. By the second session, 300 healthy suckers were happily distributed into the hands of participants, ready to be acclimatized and planted in personal plots across the village.
The genuine enthusiasm generated by the workshop sparked immediate action throughout Bamunkumbit. Before the end of the formal program, 18 proactive farmers had already built their own private nurseries using the PIF technique at home. This rapid grassroots adoption speaks volumes about the community’s hunger for progress proves that when given the right tools, rural farmers do not wait to build a better future for their families.
Through this inspiring initiative, SUHUCAM has done far more than teach technical steps; they have cultivated dignity, self-reliance, and sustainable growth in a hard-to-reach rural community. By merging local wisdom with climate-smart agriculture, the initiative ensures that food security and restored lands will nourish Bamunkumbit for generations to come.
