The government’s plan to increase commercial rice production saw acres more than double last year, largely due to interest by women
NDOP, Cameroon (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Women farmers in western Cameroon are leading the way in commercial rice production, benefiting from new seeds and marketing opportunities that are helping them cope with climate stresses and provide for their families.
A program run by the Upper Nun Valley Development Authority (UNVDA), a government agricultural industry body, aims to help rice farmers adopt better crop varieties, use water more efficiently and adapt to climate change.
“I have been able to pay school fees for my children and medical bills from the sale of my rice crop, unlike before when the harvest from my vegetable farm was uncertain,” said Bridget Ngang, one of more than 300 women commercial rice farmers in Ndop.
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Her vegetables were often ruined when heavy rain brought floods, she added.
Cameroon’s Institute of Agricultural Research for Development, together with international partners, has developed improved rice varieties that are more resistant to climate extremes, as well as farm technologies to increase rice productivity.
In the last 15 years, scientists have released 18 varieties under a line called New Rice for Africa, developed by the Africa Rice Center. It crossed an African species tolerant to local stresses, including drought and pests, and a high-yielding Asian species.
“These varieties can resist submersion, droughts and high temperatures including pests and diseases,” said UNVDA general manager Chin Richard Wirnkar.
The local development authority is involved in a project led by the Africa Rice Center, which has established a “rapid impact” seed program to distribute new high-yield seed varieties to farmers.
It also promotes post-harvest technologies such as rice milling and packaging, processing activities and stronger links with input dealers and micro-finance institutions.
The project helps households increase their income by developing rice-based products such as rice flour and husks for fuel and exploring the use of rice in fortified food, including vitamin-rich cereals.
The government acknowledges that achieving its plan to make Cameroon an emerging economy with double-digit growth by 203, and implementing the new United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and hunger depend largely on the economic empowerment of women.
“Commercial agriculture will play a key role in achieving the (goals) in Africa and the contribution of women in this area cannot be ignored,” said Wirnkar.
Renewed government interest in the rice sector in recent years gives Cameroon the potential to become a rice granary for the Central African region, according to the International Rice Research Institute.
However, making this a reality requires strengthening rural infrastructure such as roads, irrigation and rice milling and rice processing facilities and improving farmers’ ability to market their produce.
Mary Agoh farms rice on 37 acres of land in Ndop in Cameroon’s Northwest Region, from which she now comfortably feeds her family, selling her surplus to wholesale buyers to boost her income.
Agoh is now counted among the wealthy in a country where 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
She and Ndop’s other women rice farmers are helping boost Cameroon’s rice production to unprecedented levels.
Cameroon grew less than 20 percent of the rice it needed in the last few years. In 2012, the country produced 102,000 tonnes of paddy rice and had to import up to 375,000 tonnes to meet demand, according to figures cited by the institute.
However, experts say production has been on the rise since women embraced the commercial rice production scheme. The land de-veloped for rice fields under the UNDVA project more than doubled last year to around 8,200 acres and is adding 1,700 acres in northwestern villages.
Things were not the same even five years ago, when tradition prevented women in the area from acquiring or inheriting land that they could use for large-scale commercial farming.
“We were condemned to produce on small rented plots that limited us to subsistence agriculture with crops like maize and vegetables that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change and food crop loss,” said Agoh.
Cameroon’s 1996 constitution grants women the same rights as men to access, own and control land and allows them to participate in decision-making on land matters, but customary norms have made it hard for women to obtain land.
When UNVDA launched its project in 2012 to support more than 13,000 rice farmers nationwide with improved seeds, fertilizer, herbicide, information, training and equipment rental, the women in Ndop did not want to miss out.
With help from the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF), they held a series of protests, pushing local authorities to allocate them land so they could join men in commercial rice farming.
Ngang and Agoh are just two of millions of African women who have suffered from cultural practices or laws denying them access to land, but their success suggest things may be changing in Cameroon.
