Yaounde, Cameroon, April 15 - The government of Cameroon will give some XAF1.4 billion ($3.4 million) to boost farmers' cotton, cocoa and coffee output, a senior official in the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.
"This government donation of XAF1.4 billion is part of a move to boost harvest and ensure that our cotton, cocoa and coffee production is raised," Chief of Projects and Programs in the ministry, Jean Pierre Tchokam Ngassa told Dow Jones in an interview.
"Some 32 cooperatives of the farmers involved in these three crops have requested government financial assistance to enable them sustain the crops on their old farms and newly opened ones."
Tchokam Ngassa said his ministry's Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative met last week and took the decision which he will supervise.
"The money will be managed by the farmers themselves through the 32 cooperatives and common initiative groups, or CIG, to which they belong," explained Tchokam Ngassa. "The most efficient way to assist farmers is by using their groupings so as to ensure that the funds are managed in transparency."
The Cameroon government official said: "In the past farmers of cocoa, cotton and coffee had benefited from government financial assistance, but they diverted the money to instead grow food crops in order to make quick benefit. This is not the government's goal".
The funds will be handed out in the weeks ahead and farmers will have to buy inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and seedlings and ensure the upkeep of their nurseries "as spelled out in their requests" for the cash, Tchokam Ngassa said.