Abstract
Agroforestry is often portrayed as one of the ways towards ecological intensification of agricultural systems. This intensification process allows rural households to sustainably increase cash revenues and capital accumulation capacity. Many research studies have focused on the technical and economic improvement of agroforestry systems (AFS). However, it is equally important to study this the other way around, hence assessing the impact of the strategies and accumulation trajectories of farmers on the intensification of AFS. The present study aims at characterizing the various accumulation strategies of farmers and assessing their relationships with AFS intensification. The study involved semi-structured interviews of 82 cocoa farmers representative of the diversity of cocoa AFS farms in Central Cameroon. The results demonstrate that the successful accumulation strategies are the ones mainly based on the development of activities and revenues of off farm and of urban origin. This capital of urban origin has led to the strong emergence of large farms (from 5 to 30 ha). Due to the influx of financial capital and the adoption of improved agricultural techniques, these large farms achieve cocoa yields much higher (512 kg/ha) than smaller farms (<2 ha, 214 kg/ha) or medium farms (2–5 ha, 338 kg/ha). Nonetheless, the preliminary data collected in the present study indicate that the higher cocoa yields achieved by large farms does not necessarily translate into a sustainable improvement of the overall productivity (i.e. cacao as well as other products originating form AFS) or that of the labor.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alary V (1996) Incertitude et prise de risque en période d’ajustement. Le comportement des producteurs de cacao du Cameroun avant et après 1994. Economie. Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris, p 396
AREION group (2012) Le land grabbing : la course aux terres fertiles. Carto pp 54–57
Assidon E (2000) L’émergence d’un nouveau domaine, l’économie du développement. In: Béraud A, Faccarello G (eds) Nouvelle histoire de la pensée économique. La Découverte, Paris, pp 487–515
Austin GM (2005) Land, labour and capital in Ghana. University of Rochester Press, Rochester
Bebbington a (1999) Capitals and capabilities: a framework for analyzing peasant viability, rural livelihoods and poverty. World Dev 27:2021–2044
Bertaux D (2005) L’enquête et ses méthodes. Le récit de vie. Armand Colin, Paris, p 128
Binet J (1956) Condition des femmes dans la région cacaoyère du Cameroun. Cahiers internationaux de sociologie 20:109–123
Bisseleua Daghela HB (2007) Ecological, social and economic determinants in cocoa production systems in southern Cameroon. Faculty of Agricultural Sciences Ph D Thesis. Georg-August University, Goettingen, p 217
Bosc PM, Hanak Freud H (2004) Recherche agricole et innovation en afrique tropicale. Editions QUAE, Paris, p 146
Brunet R (1992) Les mots de la géographie - dictionnaire critique. La documentation française, Paris
Brycesson DF (1999) African rural labour, income diversification and livelihood approaches : a long term development perspective. ASC Working Paper 35/1999. Afrika-Studiecentrum, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation and by the International Labour Office., Leiden (Netherlands), p 40
Brycesson DF, Jamal V (1997) Farewell to farms : de-agrarianisation and employment in Africa. Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Aldershot (UK), p 265
Chambers R, Conway G (1992) Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century. IDS Working Paper IDS, Brighton, UK, p 33
Charaudeau P, Maingueneau D (2002) Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours. Seuil, Paris, p 66
Collier P, Lal D (1986) Labor and poverty in Kenya 1900–1980. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Courade G (1994) Le village camerounais à l’heure de l’ajustement. Karthala, Paris 406
CTA (2012) Secteur du cacao. Agritrade Le commerce ACP analysé et décrypté http://agritrade.cta.int/
De Souza HN, De Graaff J, Pulleman M (2012) Strategies and economics of farming systems with coffe in the Atlantic Rainforest Biome. Agrofor Syst 84:227–242
Elong JG (2004) Éton et Manguissa, de la Lékié au Mbam-et-Kim : jeux et enjeux fonciers (Centre-Cameroun). Les Cahiers d’Outre-Mer Afriques: pp 1–15
Emery M, Flora C (2006) Spiraling-up: mapping community transformation with community capitals framework.Community development. J Community Dev Soc 37:19–35
Evans H, Ngau P (1991) Rural-urban relations, household income diversification and agricultural productivity. Dev change 22:519–545
Ferraton N, Touzard I (2009) Comprendre l’agriculture familiale. Diagnostic des systèmes de production. Quae, CTA. Presses agronomiques de Gembloux, Gembloux
FIDA (2001) Evaluation de la pauvreté rurale. Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre. Fond International de Développement Agricole (FIDA), Rome
Folefack DP (2010) Pauvreté et répartition des revenus en zone cacaoyère du Cameroun. Tropicultura 28:5–9
Gafsi M (2006) Exploitation agricole et agriculture durable. Cahiers Agric 15:491–497
Gaillard C, Sourisseau J-M (2009) Système de culture, système d’activité(s) et rural livelihood : enseignements issus d’une étude sur l’agriculture kanak (Nouvelle-Calédonie). Journal de la Société des Océanistes 129:279–294
Garrity DP (2004) Agroforestry and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Agrofor Syst 61–62:5–17
Garrity DP, Okono A, Grayson M, Parrott S (2006) World Agroforestry into the Future. World Agroforestry Center, Nairobi
Haggblade S, Hazell P, Brown J (1989) Farm-nonfarm linkages in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. World Dev 17:1173–1201
Hou L (2011) Un land grab chinois en afrique Sub-Saharienne ? Outre-Terre 4:151–170
Iliffe J (1983) The emergence of African capitalism. Macmillan, London
Jarrige F (1994) La dynamique d’offre de cacao entre marché, conditions naturelles et institutions : interprétation à partir d’une comparaison Côte-d’Ivoire - Malaisie. Malaisie Sciences économiques, Dijon, p 720
Kennedy P (1988) African capitalism : the struggle for ascendancy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Kobrich C, Rehman T, Khan M (2003) Typification of farming systems for constructing representative farm models : two illustration of multi-variate analyses in Chile and Pakistan. Agric Syst 76:141–157
Landais E (1998) Modeling farm diversity. New approaches to typlogy building in France. Agric Syst 58:505–527
Lanjouw J, Lanjouw P (2001) The rural non farm sector; issues and evidence from developing countries. Agric Econ 26:1–23
Léna P (1988) Aspects de la frontière amazonienne. Cahier de l’ORSTOM, Série Sciences Humaines 22:319–343
Leplaideur A (1989) Vie et survie domestique en zone forestière camerounaise : la reproduction simple est-elle assurée ? In: Eldin M, Milleville P (eds) Le risque en agriculture. ORSTOM, Paris, pp 227–290
Losch B, Fusillier J-L, Dupraz P (1991) Stratégies des producteurs en zone caféière et cacaoyère du Cameroun. Quelles adaptations à la crise ? Collection “Documents Systèmes Agraires”. CIRAD, Montpellier, p 252
Oya C (2007) Stories of rural accumulation in Africa : trajectories and transitions among rural capitalists in Senegal. J Agrarian Change 7:453–493
Piketty MG, Veiga JB, Poccard-Chapuis R, Tourrand JF (2002) Le potentiel des systèmes agroforestiers sur les fronts pionniers d’Amazonie brésilienne. Bois et forêts des tropiques 2:75–87
Pokam J, Sunderlin W (1999) L’impact de la crise économique sur les populations, les migrations et le couvert forestier du Sud Cameroun. Center for international forestry research (CIFOR), Bogor, p 23
Reardon T (1997) Using evidence of household income diversification to inform study of the rural nonferm labor market in Africa. World Dev 25:735–747
Reardon T (1998) Rural non-farm income in developing countries. The state of food and agriculture. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome
Rugalema GH, Johnsen FH, Rugambisa J (1994) The homegarden agroforestry system of Bukoba disctrict, North-Western Tanszania. 2 Constrainsts to farm productivity. Agrofor Syst 26:205–214
Sarah A, Leke Awung G, Lysinge RJ (2007) Cocoa farm in the Mount Cameroon region: biological and cultural diversity in local livelihoods. Biodiv Conser 16:2401–2427
Scoones I (2009) Livelihoods perspectives and rural development. J Peasant Studies 36:171–196
Soini E (2005) Changing livelihoods on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania : challenges and opportunities in the Chaga homegarden system. Agrofor Syst 64:157–167
Sonwa DJ, Weise SF (2008) Diversifying and intensifying the cocoa agroforest lanscape : review and strategis approaches for managing the shade matrix in West and Central Africa. STCP Working paper, Series 4. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Accra, p 60
Sonwa DJ, Nkongmeneck BA, Weise SF, Tchatat M, Adesina AA, Janssens MJJ (2007) Diversity of plants in cocoa agroforest in the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon. Biodiv Conser 16:2385–2400
Timmer PC (2002) Agriculture and economic development. In: Arrow KJ, Intriligator MD (eds) Handbook of agricultural economics. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 1488–1536
Varlet F, Berry D (1997) Réhabilitation de la protection phytosanitaire des cacaoyers et caféiers du Cameroun. Cirad/Conseil interprofessionnel du cacao et du café (CICC), Douala, p 204+202
Weber J (1974) Types de surproduit et formes d’accumulation. La province cacaoyère du centre-sud Cameroun. ORSTOM, Yaoundé, pp 69–85
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank resource persons and farmers of the Central Cameroon for the time dedicated to answer interviews. I also thank Dr. Philippe Vaast, Cirad/Icraf, for his scientific review and Anna Snider for her translating work of the present manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pédelahore, P. Farmers accumulation strategies and agroforestry systems intensification: the example of cocoa in the central region of Cameroon over the 1910–2010 period. Agroforest Syst 88, 1157–1166 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-014-9675-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-014-9675-8