Smallholders expulsed for Agrobusiness

Fruit farmers in Njombe claim they have been unfairly expulsed from their fields for the banana export company Plantations du Haut Penja (PHP), to supply Compagnie Fruitiere in France, a subsidiary of the US based Dole Food Company.

Land is the main “employer” in Cameroon. It allows the farmers to take care of their family and lead a decent life. But ever since its installation, the banana export company Plantations du Haut Penja (PHP) has obtained as much land as possible, at times to the detriment of the rights of the local population, and with complicity of local authorities.

Comprising 43 families, a grassroots group of small fruit farmers, GPPAF, in Njombé Penja have since 1990 been cultivating land on a total area of 63 ha. They rented their plots for an average yearly fee of 20.000 FCFA per hectare from the local cooperative SOPRABO who in their turned had obtained it as part of a 173 ha lease from the State. The cooperative went bankrupt and in 1993 the State granted its grounds as a lease to the French banana export company PHP. The 63 ha plot was fully cultivated by the GPPAF members with pineapple and fruit trees.

The farmers say that, in order to avoid difficulties with the local population PHP signed an agreement in which the company returned to SOPRABO the 63 ha of rented terrain, with the understanding that PHP would manage the other 110 ha for at least 25 years, and SOPRABO would settle all claims within the community and help expulse those who occupied the terrain. Having been unsuccessful in trying to evict some farmers from the plot in 1995, SOPRABO allegedly ordered through a bailiff the farmers of GPPAF to leave the terrain, but the courts dismissed the case. PHP then pursued an out-of-court settlement by trying to evict the farmers and compensate them through the sub-prefect. Feeling powerless before such a large company, the farmers say they agreed to a settlement, if it was fair and was followed through properly.

Sincel 2005, RELUFA has at several occasions met with Njombe farmers who were taken off their land by PHP. The objectives for these visits:

1° Listen to the stories of farmers expropriated of their land by PHP
2° Identify people affected by these expulsions and the scope of damage
3° Discern with them ways and means to fight the injustices of which they are the victims.

RELUFA continues to follow up on the situation of the fruit farmers.

Read the full report of this visit >>>