A two-day co-creation workshop was organized in the Ntui Living Lab of CANALLS in Cameroon on 16-17 January 2024, bringing together different stakeholders to assess key challenges faced by cocoa farming and the corresponding agroecological practices/solutions.
The workshop grouped 30 participants including cocoa farmers, researchers, farmer leaders, cocoa transformers, cocoa traders, state members, and some members of the private sector.
The key challenges faced by cocoa farming in Ntui voted in order of priority include diseases and pests, nutritional deficiencies, and poor shade management. In the process of voting key agroecological practices/solutions, the challenges of diseases and pests and sustainable shade management were merged as they can be addressed simultaneously. Thus, for this merged challenge, the potential agroecological practices/solutions voted in order of priority include proper shade management to reduce the incidence of pod rot, dieback, and mirids, the use of biopesticides to reduce the incidence of insects/mirids and, the use of organic fungicides/bio-fungicides to reduce the incidence of brown rot. On the other hand, the key agroecological practices/solutions to solve the challenge of nutritional deficiencies in order of priority include the use of compost from cocoa pod husks, the use of organic fertilizers, the use of foliar fertilizers, and the inoculation with Mycorrhizal Fungi.
These key agroecological practices/solutions were later assessed in terms of available facilitators of adoption, possible obstacles to the adoption, and alternatives to overcoming obstacles. The overall results were positive and will greatly serve for the next phases of the activities in the Living Lab. The contribution and enthusiasm of all the participants during the workshop were impressive.
