Change and Continuity in the Introduction of Cacao Growing into the Shifting Cultivation System in the Tropical Rainforests of Southeastern Cameroon

Abstract

Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) is an important cash crop for small-scale Bangandou farmers living in forested area of Cameroon. In this region, cacao is usually grown under the shade in fields of selectively thinned natural forestland. This study aims to clarify how the cacao-growing system has been integrated into the Bangandou’s subsistence slash-and-burn agriculture and examines its role in their livelihood.

Bangandou people favor establishing new cacao fields in primary forests or old cacao fields because the shaded condition is easier to create in such vegetation. When the land is cleared, a larger number of trees are left in the cacao fields than in the fields of food crops only. This strategy of leaving more trees saves the labor for felling, and attracts people to clearing the primary forests, which would otherwise require larger labor forces. Cacao seedlings are planted in a newly cleared field, mixed with a variety of food crops during the initial several years, and grow while farmers harvest the food crops from the same fields. Unlike the food crop fields, weeding is indispensable to cacao growing, but it is so laborious that parts of the planted cacao fields often become covered with thick bush regrowth. Although these areas have to be abandoned, people may clear them for replanting after a few years.

Analyses of crop rotation and vegetation change in the cacao fields show that the fundamental elements of their farming system have remained largely unchanged by the introduction of cacao growing, in which the same principle of shifting cultivation is adopted for the new crop. This type of agriculture also ensures the stable production of food crops and acts as a buffer against unstable cacao prices and productivity.