In order to support the sector, the government distributed 12 tons of certified basic seeds to farmers.
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Between 2015 and 2021, millet/sorghum production in the North region fell from 1,040,902 tons to 1,010,792 tons in 2021, a decrease of more than 30,000 tons. Recent data on the sector show a 4.7% drop in production in 2021. According to estimates by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Minader), this decline is justified by several factors.
In particular the 2.2% decrease in sown areas; the invasion of seed-eating birds and the resurgence of caterpillars and other insects, in addition to the stagnation of rainwater in several production basins in the North and Far North regions. The ravages of pachyderms on crops, the departments of Logone and Chari and Mayo Tsanaga, in the Far North region, were at the end of 2021, the scene of an invasion of seed-eating birds. According to local sources, these birds had attacked no less than 1,500 hectares of cereals.
Over three consecutive years (2019-2020-2021), millet/sorghum production fell by 1,228,208 tonnes respectively – 1,060,642 tonnes and 1,010,792 tonnes, i.e. a drop of more than 217,000 tonnes. The year 2018 saw the largest production with 1,275,674 tons. Sorghum is the main cereal grown in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Cameroon. It is cultivated on a sown area of about 70% and its production is almost 80% of the total volume of cereal production.
For the record, the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved, on July 15, 2022, in Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, the granting of a loan of more than 40 billion FCFA to Cameroon, in order to to enable the country to increase the production of the main agricultural crops (rice, maize, sorghum, millet, soybeans, potatoes, palm oil and vegetable crops), to mitigate the impact of the food crisis caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
