Chede International Development Network

Chede collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Cameroon has yielded a livestock project for the Muambong community in Kupe Muanenguba Division. This is a pilot pig farming venture based on modern piggery practices.

The project serves as a foundation for training farmers on the modern aspects of animal husbandry. The project is in two phases: a breeding phase and a fattening phase.  The project started in July 2009.

Three Chede network entities received in 2009 grants from  the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER) totalling upwards of 30 million FCFA for the purchase of farm inputs for distribution to the farmers members of these entities.

The entities included Chede Cooperative Union Ltd which received 23 Million FCFA for the purchase of fertilizer and fungicides for its member groups, and Chede Muambong Farmers Cooperative society Ltd as well as Kupe Muanenguba Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd which each received 6 Million FCFA for the purchase and distribution of pesticides.

The partnership Convention signed in 2008 between  Chede and IRAD (the Cameroon Research Institute for Agricultural Research for Development) includes Chede’s commitment to disseminate IRAD’s research products to the national farming community.  Improved  foundation maize seeds constitute one of IRAD’s success stories in the past decade of research work.

Chede is capitalizing on this IRAD success by producing certified maize seeds for farmer groups interested in maize production. This effort is in line with the government’s policy of establishing certified seed producers in rural Cameroon as part of its national food security strategy.

In the past several months Chede’s Food Technology Division has participated in a series of exhibitions in Cameroon at which the Cooperative’s finished food products have been on prominent display.

The largest of these exhibitions was JERSIC 2009 (Journées d’Excellence de la Recherche et de l’Innovation du Cameroun) organized by the Cameroon Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation in early October 2009 in Yaoundé.

Chede products on display included:

• ANAG (pasteurized palm wine in 33 cl bottle)
• COFFEE MOUNT KUPE (roasted  robusta coffee offered in sachets of 250 gm)
• MUL (refined natural palm oil in 1 litre bottle)
• MUAMBONG PEPPER (in liquid form, 125 ml)

The originality and quality of these products, especially bottled palm wine, drew a stream of curious visitors to the Chede stand; the visitors gave much encouragement to the Chede engineers and technicians turning out these products which are all based on raw materials sourced from Chede’s network of village farmer organizations.

Under the Chede partnership with IITA  (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture: www.iita.org), which dates back to 2007, the field testing of some IITA’s high yielding and disease resistant starchy food crops (plantain, banana and cassava) in  the Chede research farm in Muambong, has taken on a new dimension with the onset of propagation of some of these varieties to the Chede network of village farmer groups.

The continuous dissemination of these highly improved foundation stocks should go a long way in fulfilling Chede’s goal of  enhancing food security and income levels in the villages and cities alike.

Support is needed to enable Chede to expand this programme beyond Kupe Muanenguba Division of the South West Region of Cameroon.