CAMEROON: Small producers trained on business accounting

COLEAD collaborates with stakeholders in agricultural value chains in countries with high potential for economic and social development to support their growth. One of COLEAD’s main activities is to strengthen the capacities of local actors through vocational training.

Recently, as part of the FFM SPS programme, COLEAD organised a training session in Cameroon for the supervisory team of small producers and a few ‘pilot’ producer-dryers from the TERRESPOIR GIC. The objective of the training was to teach the producers how to set up, analyse and maintain an operating income statement. The training was led by Mr Simplice Metienou, a COLEAD expert, and was conducted in two phases.

The first phase, which took place in October 2022, consisted in an in-situ training for 25 participants, including small producers, producer-dryers and supervisory staff of the TERRESPOIR GIC. At the end of this first phase, the participants were able to:

• Identify production-related expenses (by type and nature of expense) and revenue from their activity ;
• Develop a dashboard highlighting the key performance indicators of their enterprise ;
• Identify and record cash flows from their activity ;
• Determine the profitability of their activity ;

The second phase of the training took place in January 2023 and consisted in on-site coaching to implement the knowledge gained from the training. This support meant co-developing operating income statements by crops for producers (for a total of nine crops). In addition to developing operating income statements, several other activities were carried out to enable producers to take full ownership of the process of developing their operating income statements. This work was done for each producer or group of producers. Specifically, these activities included:

• assessing the loss rate during production operations (harvesting/drying) ;
• determining the final net weight of the packaged product ;
• Setting up methodologies, structuring and allocating costs (how to account for costs of packaging, consumables, fuel, etc.)
• Establishing an internal organisation of the production process and work (allocation and accounting of personnel for efficient work)
• Setting up methodologies, structuring and allocating costs related to the use of paid services such as water, electricity, transportation and communication, etc., for routine operations.

These trainings and on-site coaching have enabled small producers and producer-dryers of the TERRESPOIR GIC to better understand their activity, identify costs associated with production and determine their profitability.

This activity is supported by the Fit For Market SPS programme, implemented by COLEAD within the Framework of Development Cooperation between the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the European Union.