The government subsidy will cost 14 billion FCFA to the Cameroonian government.
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50,000 tons. This is the volume of fertilizer that the Cameroonian government will distribute to producers this year, for the current agricultural campaign, launched in the southern part of the country on April 11, 2023 by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (Minader). , Gabriel Mbaïrobe, in the locality of Nanga Eboko, Center region. This subsidy will swallow up an envelope of 14 billion FCFA.
Indeed, since the outbreak of the war between Ukraine and Russia, which supplies Cameroon with 43% of imported fertilizers (against 11% for China), the prices of this agricultural input have risen sharply. In a country where 25% of the territory is arable, and 70% of the active population works in agriculture.
According to a recent World Bank report titled Commodity Markets Outlook, the war between Ukraine and Russia has caused a major shock to commodity markets and prices will remain at historically high levels until at the end of 2024.
During the month of May 2022, the 50 kg bag of fertilizer was sold at 35,000 FCFA against 18,000 FCFA in the same period in 2021, an increase of 94.4%. Urea, another petroleum-derived ingredient used as a fertilizer in agriculture, was sold for more than 40,000 FCFA in the city of Garoua in the northern region, compared to 17,000 FCFA a year earlier.
The Minader explained in 2022 that the government has put in place a number of programs, strategies and projects to respond to this crisis and that the African Development Bank (AfDB) has agreed to set up a production support project. agricultural. It is a line of credit participating in a sector budget support of 42 billion FCFA set up by the African institution.
« The second program set up is the emergency program to combat food crises, financed by the World Bank to the tune of 52 billion FCFA. said Gabriel Mbaïrobe.
