Cameroon is to vastly increase its banana production as the West African country looks to increase yields.
The Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) said in a statement that it plans to increase banana production by as much as 60 per cent by the end of the year.
The state-owned agricultural company plans to expand its banana plantations by 1,750 hectares, thus increasing product by 400,000 tonnes by the end of 2009.
General manager Henry Njalla Quan said 500 hectares would be “planted immediately” in a statement handed to reporters at CDC’s headquarters in Limbe.
The CDC, whose banana projects are run in partnership with the local unit of Del Monte Food, may be privatised by Cameroon’s government, according to Quan.
Anatole Ebanga of the Cameroon Banana Association (Assobacam) declined to comment on the move but told FPJ: “We are on course to match 2008 and reach 270,000t of production this year but probably won’t reach as much as we did in 2003 when we hit 300,000t.
“Obviously all companies would like to increase yields and are fighting to do so. The goal is to get to around 50t per ha - at the moment, we are around 40t per ha.”
The CDC was created in 1947 to develop and operate plantations of tropical crops.
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