first results from an experiment on on-farm planting material production in Cameroon

Rubber smallholdings have yet to be widely developed in Cameroon and, in the absence of a support programme for that sector, small and medium-sized farms are encountering numerous difficulties. One of their major constraints is access to budded planting material, resulting in a substantial use of seedlings to develop self-funded plantations. Yet, the use of budded planting material is highly decisive in the future productivity of a plantation, and consequently in farmer incomes. Based on experience in Southeast Asia, we put forward the hypothesis that Cameroonian smallholders could produce their own planting material. Developing budded plant production on farms would be well adapted to their socio-economic conditions. An on-farm experiment was set up in two villages of South-West province in Cameroon to test the hypothesis. This paper sets out briefly to describe the methodology used, before going on to present the first results obtained. They indicated that the cost of budded material produced by farmers was generally well below the agroindustrial selling price; most of the farmers sought to reduce their financial investment; planting material production enabled farmers to clearly limit financial costs. However, several difficulties were encountered in the first year of the experiment. The conclusion drawn is that, provided farmers receive ample technical supervision, support for budded planting material production on farms, by using a collective budwood garden, could be a worthwhile alternative for improving the incomes of small and medium-sized rubber farms in Cameroon. However, this experiment needs to be replicated on a larger scale to confirm the preliminary results.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Chambon, Bénédicte, Owona Ndongo, Pierre André, Monono, Samuel, Eschbach, Jean-Marie
Format:	conference_item biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	Rubber Research Institute of Vietnam
Subjects:	E16 - Économie de la production, E20 - Organisation, administration et gestion des entreprises ou exploitations agricoles, F08 - Systèmes et modes de culture, caoutchouc, Hevea brasiliensis, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_6678, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_3589, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_1229,
Online Access:	http://agritrop.cirad.fr/549382/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/549382/1/document_549382.pdf
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