Bananas are by far Cameroon’s largest export of fresh produce to the European Union. Total production is estimated at 630,000 tonnes, but in 2003 less than half of that amount was exported and nearly all of that went to the EU.
In fact, the 293,000t of bananas exported to the EU represent practically 90 per cent of the country’s total exports of the fruit with Italy, Belgium, the UK and France being the primary recipients.
Even though production is generally tied to one of the global producers such as Dole or Del Monte, export numbers have fluctuated quite a bit over the years, dipping to as low as 134,000t in 1998.
From that time on, overseas shipments have picked up dramatically and in five short years exports have increased twofold. Export numbers could reach 400,000t by 2006 if plans to set up new plantations follow their course.
Of course, it is not just all about bananas. Cameroon also produces large quantities of plantains, cassava, tomatoes, yams and avocados, but these are not widely exported. The most commonly exported produce besides bananas include pineapple, mango, guava and papaya.
With 3,400t exported each year, pineapples make up by far the lion’s share of these products. True, it does not match banana trade volumes but nevertheless it is a sector with remarkable potential. The sector comprises 3,500 growers - including some 100 large producers - but most of the exporting companies are located in the country’s central and coastal areas, which are far more productive than their eastern and western counterparts.
In fact, only six companies had exported to the EU market in 2003, and some of these only exported during the Easter and Christmas seasons.
Export volumes only represent 15 per cent of total pineapple production. This is in part due to the high cost of freighting produce by air as well as the poor state of infrastructure that makes it difficult for producers in remote areas to bring their produce to freight centres.
Complying with the requirements of the European market is another aspect producers have to contend with, a problem exacerbated by the fact many of the country’s technical specialists were not yet up-to-date with EU maximum pesticide residue levels (MRL) and traceability rules when the EU-ACP Pesticides Initiative Programme (PIP) began to remedy this shortcoming in 2003.
Since then, its experts have conducted a dozen missions in Cameroon to evaluate the needs of the country’s horticultural producers vis-à-vis European food safety regulations. Following this evaluation period, a number of pineapple growers signed protocols with PIP to receive technical assistance in the implementation of traceability systems and in complying with MRL limits.
While companies are being helped to meet EU requirements, some of the country’s private and public support structures, notably AGROCOM and CETAM, are being shored up to increase their capacity to provide appropriate technical assistance to the sector.
Traceability and MRL compliance are especially important in a sector where organic pineapple production is burgeoning. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) total organic pineapple production in Cameroon was estimated at 1,500t in 2001, more than half of which was exported (800t).
One of the pioneers of organic pineapple production in Cameroon, and indeed in Africa, is Jean-Pierre Imele, general director of Biotropical Agriculture Development Company (BADC).
“I was the first one to introduce the concept of organic tropical fruits at a time when no one talked about it,” claims Imele, who began organic production in 1989.
BADC is one of the main horticulture exporting companies in Cameroon. It employs 60 full-time employees and exports nearly 1,000t of fresh produce a year. Around 60 per cent of that total is comprised of pineapples, but like many of its fellow producers it also exports mangoes, papayas and bananas.
In fact, in 2003 Cameroon producers exported 113t of mangoes and guava, and 27t of papayas to the EU, most of it bound for France. BADC, for its part, has several farms of its own, but relies on a number of large and small growers from across the country to top off its own production.
“Reaching satisfactory qualitative results requires considerable logistical and financial means in production technique training,” explains Imele. Indeed, BADC’s many smaller suppliers have to be trained in organic production methods which comply with EU organic production regulations (Regulation 2092/91), especially in a climate of changing EU regulations.
Indeed, the EU’s ban on the use of ethylene and calcium carbonate to induce flowering in organic production dealt a hard blow to BADC and other growers production. “This situation made us lose a large part of our market share and of our sales in pineapple exports to the EU,” claims Imele.
Traditional non-organic growers are also finding it hard to comply with EU food safety regulations. “Our employees and our members are not sufficiently trained to meet the requirements of the EU market, and they don’t have the appropriate protection gear,” explains Jean-Marie Sop, the head of GIC-UNAPAC, a cooperative that exports more than 5t of pineapples a week to the EU. “Fertilisers are expensive and rare, the cost of freight is too high and interest rates are horrendous (23 per cent).”
To boot, the MRL for the the active substance ethephon has been set at 2mg/kg by the EU. Growers use ethephon on pineapples because the hormone it releases, namely ethylene, contributes to the golden hue European consumers cherish so much.
But complying with the MRL is difficult for pineapple growers to achieve, especially during the rainy season. Despite this and other difficulties however, pineapple growers in Cameroon remain optimistic about the future.
“A Pineapple Task Force was created to look into the problems we face and we now have partnership agreements with a French agricultural NGO as well as with PIP with whom we are working to find alternative solutions to the use of ethephon,” states Sop. He also plans to come to Europe and meet with importers and consumers in an attempt to make them understand what green pineapples are all about.
Support and assistance from PIP, international organisations and national support structures will undoubtedly help pineapple growers and exporters like BADC and GIC-UNAPAC find solutions to the problems they face and contribute to the industry’s further development.
No comments yet