The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has offered surveillance equipment to help government in its move to control pests and other diseases that ravage food and cash crops in the country. The material estimated at 10,000 Euros (about FCFA 6.5 million) was officially handed over to government yesterday July 31 by the Interim FAO Country Representative, Ousseynou Ndoye. The Secretary General in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), Jean Claude Eko'o Akouafane, sat in for the Minister.

Speaking during the ceremony, both Eko'o Akouafane and Ousseynou Ndoye said the gift is to boost the activities of the support pilot project to put in place phytosanitary information on integrated crop pest management in the forest zone of the country. The equipment include among others, digital cameras, microscope, bacterial incubator, refrigerator and distillator. According to the FAO representative, quality and quantity agricultural productivity are synonymous with ensuring food self-sufficiency, boosting the livelihoods of the farmers and in so doing attaining desired socio-economic development.

Talking to Cameroon Tribune, Nuza Syxtus Thomas, Director for Regulations and Quality Control of Agricultural Products and Inputs in MINADER, said the project seeks to strengthen the capacities of the staff of MINADER in conducting pest surveillance and knowledge of pests and control methods. He added that this concerns particularly pesticides currently used on tomato, banana plantain, cassava and maize. Hope is that at term, the project will help to come up with a database that will serve as a tool for decision-making and phytosanitary information exchange.