01/09/2026
๐๐ 7:30 AGRIC INFO
WHO REALLY MAKES MONEY FROM AGRICULTURE?
The farmer starts the business. But who captures the value?
When we talk about agriculture, we often imagine the farmer standing in the field, planting, spraying, harvesting and selling.
But agriculture is much bigger than farming.
Behind every bag of maize, bunch of bananas, kilogram of coffee or crate of tomatoes is an entire economic chain: inputs-production- aggregation- transport- storage-processing โ packaging-marketing-retail-finance and other services.
And here is the interesting part:
๐ The person who produces the food is not necessarily the person who captures the greatest value from it.
๐ฑ THE FARM IS ONLY THE BEGINNING
A farmer may sell fresh tomatoes for FCFA 300 per kilogram.
By the time those tomatoes reach the consumer, their value may have increased considerably because somebody has:
โข Collected and sorted them
โข Stored them
โข Transported them
โข Processed or packaged them
โข Marketed them
โข Provided the shop or market space
โข Financed the transaction
This is the agricultural value chain.
The question therefore shouldn't only be:
โHow can we produce more?โ
It should also be:
โHow can we capture more value from what we produce?โ
๐ฐ THE BIG OPPORTUNITY FOR CAMEROON
This is where our agricultural thinking needs to change.
For years, much of our agricultural investment has concentrated around production.
We tell farmers to produce more maize, more potatoes, more tomatoes, more coffee...
But what happens after production?
Poor storage.
Expensive transportation.
Limited processing.
Weak packaging.
Unorganized marketing.
Limited market information.
Limited access to agricultural finance.
And eventually, the farmer sells cheaply because the product is perishable and the farmer has few options.
Meanwhile, somebody else may buy the raw product, transform it, package it, transport it and sell it at several times the farm-gate price.
That is where the real economic lesson lies.
๐ AGRICULTURE IS NOT JUST FARMING
If Cameroon wants agriculture to become a serious engine of economic development, we need businesses around the farm.
We need:
Storage businesses.
Cold-chain businesses.
Processing industries.
Agricultural logistics.
Packaging companies.
Market information services.
Agricultural equipment rental.
Digital agriculture.
Agricultural insurance and finance.
Quality-control and certification services.
These are not activities outside agriculture.
They are agriculture.
And they create jobs for people who may never own a farm.
