Franklin Ngoni Ikome Njie, General Manager of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) has said the company is facing very hard times in the rubber sector forcing the company to get money from other sources to keep the plantations alive.

Njie, spoke to the Journal on the side-lines of the International Rubber Development Board Regional Workshop held in Buea.

The workshop brought together stakeholders in the rubber sector to look at the challenges, issues and perspectives surrounding the expansion of the rubber sector in Cameroon.

For two days, they shared experiences on the success stories from Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire among several other exchanges.

According to the CDC General Manager, the focus should be on improving productivity.

“The main focus should be on improving productivity. Productivity is an area where CDC has a problem. Our productivity is low for many reasons. One of the reasons is that our plantations are aged" he added.

Franklin Njie went on to advance other reasons for the low rubber productivity, notwithstanding the low prices of rubber on the global market.

“Apart from that, there are other reasons why our productivity is low. We are still planting and cultivating clones which are not as yet yielding as those which are cultivated elsewhere. So, our hope is that through an exchange like this one, we shall be able to get into possession of some of the high yielding clones which are available,” he said.

On how low prices of rubber on the global market affect the CDC, he said,
“Low prices entail low revenue; it means that sustainability is threatened because in order to stay in rubber production, we have to spend money to run the rubber plantations. We have to invest to rejuvenate the rubber plantations. And to stay in business, you need income.

Presently, the current situation is the revenue from rubber, if you take the past three to four years, we are on about 30 percent of what it was three, four years ago. So it is very very hard.”

Njie said they are taking measures to rescue the situation, though the times are hard. He said they have to get money from other sources which means at times borrowing, lending in order to go through this difficult phase.

But the essential thing as a growing concern is that “we should focus on producing good quality rubber so that when the time comes when prices will recover, we shall still have our place in the market.”

The workshop was organized by the government of Cameroon in collaboration with the International Rubber Research and Development Board. Participants were drawn from Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, India, Malaysia and Cameroon

The main focus was to improve the quality of rubber, increase productivity and better market rubber.

Launching the workshop on behalf of the Minister of External Relations, Governor Okalia Bilai Bernard of the South West Region disclosed that, close to 50 new rubber clones will be made available to Cameroon rubber planters so as to boost productivity.

The Secretary General of IRRDB, Abdul Aziz expressed the determination of his institution to support Cameroon in its endeavours.

The participants discussed among others the production of high quality rubber, sustainable rubber initiative, disease management and technology transfer.

Day two of the workshop was marked by a guided field visit to Tiko, Missellele and Likomba rubber plantations.