In Yaounde, Poultry manure is used to fertilize garden crops and thereby increase food
security. In this case, one can say that combining livestock and farming plays a great role in
sustainable agriculture. For the purpose of this E-consultation, CECOSDA followed the
activities of Mariette who combines poultry and farming as a sustainable agricultural technics.
In Damas, a locality of Cameroon’s capital city Yaoundé, Mariette and her
family are into a small mix agricultural system where they rear fowls and also grow
crops for local consumption and sales in the local markets of Damas and Biyem-Assi.
Mariette has 300 chickens and she produces about 10 bags of compost per week. She
sells a bag for 500 F CFA, she explains that she can comfortably fertilize about 10m² of
her farm land with one bag of the compost. About 50km away is Mr Njoya Jarvis who
grows fruits crops like tomatoes, pepper, and vegetables like “Amaranthus”
(popularly known in the Yaounde local markets as Follong). Jarvis buys compost from
another client who rails chickens like Mariette and he has seen that his productivity
has greatly increased from 2012 when he started using the compost from fowl drops.
In fact, he is presently trying to set up his own local poultry so that he will not
continue to buy compost from another farmer.
The local and individual initiatives like that of Mariette will go a long way to
reduce the level of food insecurity in Cameroon. It has been observed that many
people would like to get involved in this environmental friendly and sustainable
farming method, but they are lacking in information which still remains a very vital
aspect of sustainable development in Cameroon.