Food price policy and food production in Cameroon : some notes

In reviewing food pricing policies in relation to food production in Cameroon, the author addresses three topics in particular: food production and population growth, the nature of food price policies in Cameroon, and the trends in actual food prices in the recent past. Bearing in mind the unreliability of food production data, it can be concluded that there is a growing 'duality' between the western and northern regions of the country, where per capita food production is precarious, and the southern and eastern parts, where favourable per capita food production rates could be achieved. Cameroon's food price policy can best be described as non-interventionist. Basically, food price formation is left to the market mechanism of demand and supply. Whether this state of affairs represents a problem or a blessing remains an open question because so little is known about the main characteristics of rural food systems, such as producer prices, production levels, locally marketed volumes, costs of production, and so on. Bibliogr