Systèmes de culture et décisions techniques dans l'exploitation agricole. Chapitre 2

SAD CT1National audienc

La gestion technique de la production agricole

National audienc

Transforming savannah into cocoa agroforests : analysis of a local innovation by farmers in Central Cameroon

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) growing is traditionally practised after forest clearance and is generally considered to be one of the main deforestation factors in the tropics, as in Ivory Coast, where the forest area declined from 13 million hectares in 1960 to 3 million hectares in 1990 (Hanak Freud et al. 2000). Yet, in the forest-savannah transition zone in central Cameroon, which is the main cocoa producing area of the country, cocoa trees are, on the contrary, playing a major forestation role in a region that is considered to be sub-optimum for cocoa growing due to the ecological constraints exerted on the crop (Wood and Lass, 1985). The existence of cocoa agroforests established on the grasslands of the forest-savannah transition zone in central Cameroon incites one to reflect upon the processes whereby this original cocoa growing system, which differs considerably from the usual cocoa growing development scheme, came about and functions. (Résumé d'auteur