Cameroon’s cocoa growers face bitter times

Increasingly longer dry seasons because of climate change are causing Cameroon to lose between 40% and 50% of its cocoa seedlings in nursery plants every year.

CAPE TOWN, April 22 (ANA) – Increasingly longer dry seasons because of climate change are causing Cameroon to lose between 40% and 50% of its cocoa seedlings in nursery plants every year, according to Cameroon Report.

It said this was revealed by Jean Claude Akouafane, director-general of the Cocoa Development Company (SODECAO), during the inauguration of SODECAO’s watering device in Ebolowa last week.

The executive explained that because of the watering device, its nursery plants located in Ebolowa in the South region would increase production to 200,000 seedlings, against 125,000, currently.

Meanwhile, SODECAO indicated that it was planning to distribute four million high-yield cocoa seedlings to renew ageing farms and expand some of the existing ones, Cameroon Report said. The goal of this campaign is to boost national production.

According to actors in the cocoa sector, the age of the plantations and the producers, and the poor quality of plant materials, as well as difficult access to seedlings, are the problems hindering the increase in national cocoa production.

Meanwhile, an infographic issued on Wednesday by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies showed that climate change was straining livelihoods across broad swathes of Africa, intensifying instability in multifaceted ways.

It said the continent’s ability to adapt to and mitigate these effects will have global repercussions.

“Climate change is inherently unfair. It tends to most affect the poorest countries that have the lowest carbon emissions. By adding pressure to already strained environmental and economic systems, climate change exacerbates resource competition, intercommunal grievances, state fragility and other vulnerabilities,” the institution said.

Countries in conflict, in turn, are less able to focus on conservation and long-term adaptation.

With every 0.5-degree Celsius increase in local temperatures, the risk of conflict increases 10% to 20%. Globally, the period from 2011 to 2020 was the hottest decade ever recorded. The Sahel was particularly affected, with temperatures rising 1.5 times the international average during this period.

Eight of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change are in Africa. Six of those eight are facing armed conflict.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher