According to authorities, there are now more than three million individuals in Cameroon who are severely food insecure, up from 2.8 million in 2022. The data, according to experts, show a persistent trend in recent years. This worrying development is attributed to diminishing agricultural yields, climate change, and internal conflicts that result in significant population displacements.
When Miriam Shang’s successful poultry farmer husband passed away in February, she moved from Bamenda in northwest Cameroon to Douala.
He was assassinated by separatists fighting for the independence of the English-speaking North West and South West regions from the predominantly francophone Central African nation because he did not provide financial support for the armed effort.
“It’s been three months since I left my place for Douala,” she said. “Things have really been tough for my children and I. We go for days without food. I’m pleading to well-wishers to help my family and I. Please, please help us.”
According to the United Nations, the protracted violence, which started in 2016 over perceived marginalization, has so far resulted in an estimated 3,000 deaths and more than 700,000 people being displaced from their homes.
Miriam and her two toddlers live in squalor in Douala, like the majority of the displaced, and frequently go without food for days at a time. They are among the nearly three million individuals, or 11% of the population, who are locked in food insecurity, as the government announced in early May.
According to economist Jean-Marie Biada, the number will keep rising as long as the conflict persists.
“When there’s war,” he said, “people flee and cannot take along their farms, kitchens or bank accounts. They run away empty-handed to escape death and have no resources and that breeds [potential] famine.”
The number of Cameroonians experiencing food insecurity has increased recently. Agriculture yields are declining, in addition to the separatist struggle and the ongoing insurgency in the north that is supported by Boko Haram.
Experts attribute the issue to the lack of structural reforms, the eradication of large tracts of cropland by elephants and caterpillars in search of food, ongoing droughts, and unpredictable weather patterns that cause floods.
Kennedy Tumenta, an agric economist, issues an urgent call for policy revisions to address tendencies toward increased food insecurity.
“We still see a lot of informal agricultural processes hampering productivity,” he said. “We have to increase climate-smart agriculture, because one of the biggest problems is climate change. [That] means making use of modern conservation methods, early-warning systems and weather-related information.”
In the meantime, the cost of farm inputs, especially fertilisers, continues to spike since the start of the war in Ukraine, and a decision by the government to hike fuel prices in February has prompted corresponding increases in transportation costs.
Merchants in Doula said that moving food from the farms to the markets has tripled in cost, and that inflation has led customers to cut back on purchasing even basic staples.
