By Doh James Sonkey
A press conference was granted last February 28, 2024 by the President and Co-Founder of the J&A Oben Foundation, Prof Julius Oben, at the Damas, Yaounde neighbourhood on the theme “embracing local cuisine and nutritional practices for sustainable import substitution in Cameroon.”
He frowned that “Cameroon cannot today be receiving rice as food aid meanwhile 60 years ago; it was self sufficient in rice production. The Cameroon government should rather be protecting the Yagoua and Ndop rice because it is made in Cameroon products. They test better than any imported rice. I will tell Ministers to emulate the example of the J&A Oben Foundation where we stopped the importation of rice. Stop the consumption of foreign rice and consume locally produced rice.”
In his preliminary statement, Prof Julius Oben focused on aspects and elements of the trade deficit linked to nutrition and health and specifically discussed the substitution of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and vitamins, which are abundant in cereals, fish, vegetable oils and medication respectively which constitute the bulk of Cameroon’s imports.
He added that “in Cameroon, 11% of the population is facing acute food insecurity, i.e 3 million Cameroonians do not have adequate access to sufficient, safe and nutritious foods that meet their dietary needs and preferences for an active and healthy life.”
For the past 5 years, the J&A Oben Foundation has campaigned vigorously to promote the consumption of local foods as part of their mission of “promoting wellness and longevity. This mission falls in line with the recent directives given by the President of the Republic in his 2024 New Year address to promote and accelerate import substitution.
He announced that “the J&A Oben Foundation will in the next few months partner with the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC as well as other producers of palm oil to introduce the consumption of palm oil in the three Northern regions as well as parts of the East region where Vitamin A deficiency is high and for which red palm oil is not a major component of their diets.”
Prof Julius Oben concluded that “if government wants to increase customs duty on imported rice, the supplement should be made available for the cultivation of rice. The money should not be sent to another sector. We need to start telling people the benefits of meals, i.e we tell people that when you consume this know that you will have this for example.”