Agribusiness for Africa’s Prosperity. Country Case Studies
In terms of trade, investment and technology flows, Cameroon can improve the level of its multilateral commitments. This would create confidence in the irreversibility of its reforms and render them more credible, thus improving its ability to attract the much wanted foreign investment. Cameroon can improve the level of its multilateral commitments through two principal options for liberalizing its trade regime in a non-preferential way: by unilateral liberalization (reductions in import barriers) and by reciprocal liberalization (in the context of a multilateral round of trade negotiations, which entails in addition to reductions in import barriers, the binding of many or all tariffs at new lower levels, and the acceptance of new rules, procedures, and disciplines). Cameroon’s trading partners can assist its reform efforts by ensuring stable and increased access to their markets, in particular for products of export interest to Cameroon, e.g. agro-industrial products. Action is required to increase investment in agricultural education, especially at postgraduate level, to replenish Cameroon’s greying agricultural research establishment: at the technical levels to produce the large number of well-trained technicians required by modern agriculture and value chains, and at the vocational levels to instil in rural households the basic skills needed to access and master new production technologies. Curricula at teaching institutions should be updated and upgraded to provide appropriate training and skills development for agribusiness. Teaching institutions need also to improve output, quality, uniformity, and continuity of supply, while providing agribusiness training to regional and special area staff. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) and Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI) agencies and all the offices in the country responsible for alignments with World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations and international product standards need to be restructured and rationalized. Targeting commodities and producers: combining value addition with social inclusion A key question for policymakers is which commodities and which groups of producers in the country should be targeted for value addition and social inclusion. Answering this involves an empirical study to determine and to exploit the competitive advantage of targeted agricultural and agro-industrial markets, and to identify agribusiness-oriented livestock interventions which are consistent with the industry’s comparative advantage. A second stage is to target policy interventions and resources towards specialization in a range of specific products with comparative advantage. Finally, policymakers should identify and work with farmer groups and processors that have demonstrated the potential to increase production, productivity, processing, and marketing of products with revealed comparative and competitive advantage. However, all this has yet to be done in the context of developing Cameroon’s agro-industrial potential while promoting social inclusion in all regions and for all groups of rural households. Developing and exploiting local, regional and international demand Although most agro-industrial production is consumed in Cameroon there are some niche market export opportunities in the region. One such opportunity arises from the exchange rate differential between Cameroon and Nigeria whose currency has tended to be overvalued, often substantially so, partly reflecting the ‘Dutch Disease’ effects of its reliance on oil and gas exports. As a result, Cameroonian exports are relatively cheap in Nigeria and also in other regional ‘Dutch Disease’ markets, such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Chad. These exchange rate differentials allied with the domestic bias against agriculture in oil-exporting economies provide agro-industrial export opportunities for Cameroon. Regional demand for agro-industrial exports from Cameroon could be developed through the following actions: Countries in the region need to form strategic partnerships through regional value chains that enhance investment, trade, marketing and food security; 66