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| Title: | The expansion of coffee production in Bamenda and bananas in the south west |
| Author: | DeLancey, M.W. |
| Book title: | Conference on the political economy of Cameroon, historical perspectives |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Pages: | 303-312 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Cameroon |
| Subjects: | agricultural cooperatives small farms coffee bananas |
| Abstract: | The major economic change of the colonial period in Cameroon was the development and expansion of the production of agricultural produce for sale in world markets, with the most significant changes occurring in peasant agriculture. Once the plantation issue was resolved - migrant labour was forthcoming and the forced labour concept could be abandoned - both the French and the British turned to the African farmer as the main producer of export crops. Both turned to the same crop, cocoa, as the mainstay of peasant production. And both turned to some form of cooperative societies to foster the desired changes. British administrators saw cooperatives as important not only for their role in promoting cocoa, but also in providing an institutional framework for the growth of a superior class within society and as a training ground for the new rulers who were to replace the traditional forms of 'tribal' rule. Another common theme was that the coops could serve to unify people over clan lines. Coffee and banana smallholder production developed rather through the local initiative of smallholders and their need for cash. Coffee production developed in the Bamenda highlands in the late 1920s and especially in the 1930s, as well as in the area around Dschang and Foumban. Banana production took off after 1951 in the southernmost portions of the British territory. The growth of coffee and banana cooperatives after World War II was also a result of African initiative, though with some British assistance. Ref. |