Cameroon - Agricultural Research and Extension Program Support Project

Report No. PID5591 Project Name Cameroon-Agricultural Research and (@#) Extension Program Support Project Region Africa Sector Agriculture Project ID CMPE45348 Borrower Government of Cameroon Implementation Ministry of Agriculture Directorate for Agricultural Production Yaounde Tel and Fax: 237 316702 Date of initial PID June 14, 1996 Projected Board Date June 16, 1998 Project Cost US$45.5 million Proposed IDA Credit US$15 million Financing Plan Government of Cameroon $12.9 million International Fund for Agricultural Development $ 7.3 million African Development Bank $10.3 million IDA $15.0 million 1. Background. The agricultural sector in Cameroon is the country's most accessible future source of growth. It currently accounts for more than 30 percent of GDP, contributes 27 percent towards export earnings and employs 75 percent of the national labor force. Some 1.3 million farm families, comprising almost 8 million rural dwellers, mostly smallholders, account for about 65 percent of the country's total population. 2. Project Objectives are to support the Government's agricultural extension strategy. The project will contribute to improve agricultural productivity and incomes of men and women farmers, through the delivery of sustainable professional agricultural and livestock advisory services, backed up by relevant research services and the adoption of improved husbandry techniques. Progress in achieving these objectives will be evaluated by (i) the increase in the numbers of farmers, particularly women, directly receiving advisory services; (ii) the level of adoption of new technical messages; and (iii) the impact of these technical messages in levels on farm incomes. 3. Project Description. The project supports improvement in the quality of the delivery of agricultural extension services by regular training of field staff, close links between research and extension, regular supervision, mobility of staff at all levels and regular monitoring and evaluation of activities. In addition, a pilot initiative will be supported to rehabilitate a number of agricultural colleges to improve the levels of training of agricultural technicians. The project components include: (a) Agricultural Extension (sub-components include participatory diagnosis of farmers' production problems, transfer of environmentally sustainable improved  farming techniques, particularly to resource-poor and women farmers, availability of improved seeds and breeding stock, increased use of mass media, monitoring of the progress of extension and research activities); (b) Agricultural Research (sub-components include strengthening of IRAD's agricultural research services, on-station research, training of IRAD staff, the interface between research and extension, including training of subject matter specialists, on-farm trials and on-farm diagnosis, and the establishment of a Competitive Grant Fund to finance research projects originating in the participatory diagnosis work undertaken with farmers at village level); (c) Training and Human Resources Development (comprising a large number of staff training programs, including training on participatory assessment of farmers technology transfer needs by different socio-economic strata, training of staff on gender issues in agricultural production, training in environment conservation, in post harvest and product processing, in group market links development, as well as pilot proposal to rehabilitate two/three agricultural colleges for basic and refresher training of agricultural technicians operating in the public and private sector); (d) Support for Farmers' Organizations and Links with the Private Sector (supporting the efforts of the SOASP unit of PNVA to develop formal and informal contacts between farmer groups/associations and private sector suppliers of agricultural inputs and crop processing equipment, traders, industrial purchasers of agricultural products, etc. and to assist groups in handling contractual arrangements with the private sector). (e) Pilot project in support of Village Community Initiatives; (testing effective ways to identify genuine common interest groups willing to invest their own resources (cash and labour) to implement community projects of their own initiative; to identify specific training requirements that would enable the project initiators to negotiate and control the implementation of their project by third parties, and to maintain any asset constructed by implementing the project and to e; and and stablish the need for matching grant finance of the community initiated projects, including criteria to study the conditions under which such need really arises, and to quantify the need for such finance. (f) Project Impact Evaluation. (including regular review and analysis of information internally generated by the extension staff; assistance to the extension field staff in performing the financial evaluation of the expected net benefits of adopting the technologies extended to farmers and support to the SOASP units in contracting and reviewing market studies and crop processing project proposals. DEPA will recruit an economist to perform these duties; external evaluation of project impact through (a) specific ad hoc technology adoption case studies, (b) beneficiaries' assessment studies, and (c) base line and update surveys of agricultural production of a fixed sample of farmers. Furthermore, and independent evaluation of the research projects financed under the Competitive research Grant Fund. 4. Project Financing - Total cost of the project is estimated at US$45.5 million, of which US$28.7 million investment and US$16.8 million recurrent. IDA will provide US$8.6 million for part of the costs of the Agricultural extension component, US$2.9 million towards the costs of the Agricultural research component, US$2.6 million towards the Training and Human Resource Development Component, US$ 0.3 million for the Support to Farmers' Organizations and Private Sector Linkages component, US$0.2 million towards support of the village-level community development initiative and US$0.3 million for external monitoring and evaluation and studies. IFAD will fund US$4.2 million towards the costs of the extension component, US$1.4 million -2 -  towards the Agricultural Research component, US$1.3 million for Training and Human Resource Development component, US$0.1 million towards Support to Farmers' Organizations and Private Sector Linkages component, US$0.1 million towards support of the village-level community development initiative and US$0.2 million for Monitoring and Evaluation and Studies. The African Development Fund will provide US$10 million towards the cost of the Agricultural Research component. 5. The project financing plan provides for US$12.9 million (including taxes) from Government, which represents 20 percent of the total net-of-tax costs. The balance of US$32 million would be funded jointly between IDA, IFAD and the African Development Fund. Taxes and duties amount to US$4.2 million over 4 years. 6. Project Implementation - Project oversight and coordination of the components directly under the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture (Agricultural Extension, Training and Human Resource Development, Farmer Organization Support and private Sector Linkages, Village-based participative community development, internal Monitoring and Evaluation of extension, financial management and control) will be the responsibility of the Directorate for Agricultural Production. The national coordinator will be the Deputy Director, DPA, responsible for the Agricultural Extension Division. This officer will also have responsibility for the research/extension linkages sub-component and will act as secretary for the competitive research grant fund sub-component. Given the important management role played by the national coordinator, the candidate for this post will possess qualifications and experience which are acceptable to IFAD and IDA. A deputy coordinator has been nominated by the Ministry of Livestock to ensure close collaboration with this Ministry. Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock staff will be deployed in accordance with the September 1997 Agreement signed between the two Ministries. IRAD will be responsible for the three agricultural research sub- components funded by the African Development Bank, concerned with the rehabilitation of IRAD's research structure, on-station research and training of IRAD staff. The Division of Studies and Projects (DEPA) will be responsible for external Monitoring and Evaluation and for the coordination of major studies. 7. The Agricultural Extension component represents a continuation of support for the Government's national agricultural extension policy started under the ongoing National Agricultural Extension and Training project (Ln 3185-CM). A major objective of this policy is to consolidate and harmonize a diversity of sources of support for agricultural extension leading to a more rational use of resources. The role of the National Agricultural Extension Program is to ensure that advisory services reach as many livestock and crop farmers as possible, giving priority to direct services to resource poor and small farmers foodcrop producers. The program uses an approach which highlights participation among extension staff, researchers and farmers in on-farm diagnosis and adaptive research and regular training of field staff and farmers. The main tools include work programming, regular training, use of loose contact groups made up of farmers sharing similar interests, individual on-farm demonstration plots and on-farm trials with research and extension staff. 8. Some 1,700 multidisciplinary field agents, backed by about 350 supervisory staff, 250 subject matter specialists, and over 200 research staff -3 -  will provide advisory services to farmers at all levels of technical advancement. The zonal extension worker (AVZ) is the link pin between farmers and herders and sources of technology and information. Each AVZ will cover between 500 and 1,000 farm families (an average of 800 nationally), according to population density and the state of communications and rural roads. Coverage is expected to be lower in remote areas and will represent increased average costs for targeting remote and poor families. For the majority of smallholder farmers, face-to-face contact will be through regular meetings between the AVZ and contact groups. These will be organized in such a way as to distinguish groups of farmers belonging to different social strata and taking gender into account. Larger farmers and planters will receive technical advice from subject matter specialists on the basis of flexible timetables defined in joint consultation between SMS and farmers. They will be gradually encouraged to obtain farm specific demonstration and technical advice from private technicians on a commercial basis. Market oriented small farmers and cash crop producers will be encouraged to join associations and to purchase specialized technical advice on similar arrangements. Identification and diagnosis of production- and post-harvest-related problems will be undertaken jointly by extension and research staff with farmers throughout the year, on the basis of work programs defined under contracts prepared at provincial levels. The number of female extension staff will be increased by recruitment of 200 such staff on renewable contracts on a pilot basis. Some 52 farmers' organization specialists (SOASPs), operating at the regional level, under supervision from staff at provincial and central level will interact between farmers organizations, agricultural merchants and suppliers and NGOs to ensure reliable flow of information of market opportunities and to "broker" agreements between the national extension services and the services of private sector partners. They will be assisted by a post-harvest/crop processing subject matter specialist posted initially at provincial level. An economist financial analyst to be posted in the M&E unit will assist with market survey and financial analysis of proposed investments which will be sub-contracted to private individuals and NGOs whenever appropriate. An environmental subject matter specialist in each province has been appointed to ensure consistency between technical recommendations and environmental sustainability. Close linkages with agricultural research staff will be ensured through renewable work programs prepared by provincial agricultural research and extension staff and funded by MINAGRI. 9. The program will cover all ten provinces of Cameroon, an increase over the six provinces included originally under the preceding project. The next phase of funding in support of agricultural extension will concentrate on improving the quality and increasing coverage of the services. In particular, greater attention will be paid to animal husbandry extension. The coverage of the extension services will be broadened so as to benefit more women farmers and also to target those farmers who are among the poorest. Participation by farmers in programming agricultural extension and research will be intensified by continued emphasis on on-farm diagnosis by extension and researchers. Training in diagnosis techniques will remain a priority. The present practice will be complemented by introducing a simple method to assess the different problems facing resource poor farmers and women foodcrop producers, forming separate contact groups of these farmers when required, and to ensure that the requirements of those farmers are included in the work plans. To complement on-farm diagnosis, two further approaches will be developed to resolve problems, whose solution cannot necessarily be found on-farm. The first will be to continue support for solutions to agricultural input delivery and - 4 -  marketing problems being developed in conjunction with the private sector, farmers associations with staff from the Farmer Organizations and Links with the Private Sector Support unit (SOASPs). The second will be to initiate a pilot project in support of village-level community development diagnosis, based on successful experience of such an approach elsewhere in the region. The use of mass media will be strengthened to complement the participatory approach to extension. Seed production and multiplication will continue to receive support. In particular, national seeds legislation will be finalized, and women's groups and smallscale individual farmers will be encouraged to multiply improved seeds. In order to maintain the new levels of commitment among extension staff, an award system based on merit will be introduced for extension and research staff. Private sector partners have already expressed willingness to participate in such a system. 10. The project provides resources to encourage testing alternative technology delivery systems on a pilot basis. Study tours, including public and private sector representatives will be organized to countries beyond the Africa Region to compare experiences which could be of relevance to Cameroon. Certain extension activities, such as training, extension, monitoring and evaluation, on-farm trials, could be sub-contracted to NGOs, private companies or training institutes, which demonstrate necessary capability and who agree to respect the principles of the national extension policy. Funds are included under the project to allow for subcontracting such selected extension activities to third parties. 11. The Directorate for Agricultural Projects and Studies (DEPA) will be responsible for external monitoring and evaluation of project impact. The DEPA will work closely with the Monitoring and Evaluation staff of the PNVA national coordination unit, who are responsible for monitoring the internal progress of the extension and research programs on the ground. A single monitoring and evaluation system will monitor indicators of performance for both research and extension services. This system will be based on two levels. The internal monitoring system is based on information collected during daily farm visits by the front level staff. This information will be used to gauge the impact of the extension and research services according to objectives and indicators agreed with supervisors. Rates of adoption of technical messages will be the main measure of impact of the extension and research services. The second level would involve: (a) a series of annual in-depth technology adoption/rejection case studies based on limited samples; (b) a rural household survey of about 2,000 households to be undertaken in the second and fourth year with the same methodology as the baseline survey carried out in 1998, to acquire an insight on the overall impact of the project on production, and (c) an external beneficiary assessment to be carried out in the first and third year of the project. Furthermore, the M&E component includes the appointment of an economist/financial analyst who will be responsible for supervising the work done at SMS level to check the financial viability of the technical packages and to assist the SOAPS staff and the SMS post harvest/processing/marketing technologies in assessing investment proposal and contracting specific studies as required in their activities. 12. Under the Research component, the African Development Bank will fund three sub-components in direct support of the National Agricultural Research Institute for Development (IRAD) over the next five years. These sub- components include rehabilitation of the physical infrastructure of selected - 5 -  IRAD stations, purchase of equipment, provision of technical assistance, documentation and operating costs of research staff; funding of demand-driven research programs; and local and overseas training of IRAD research staff. Technical and institutional responsibility for implementation of these sub- components will be with the Director General of IRAD, a relatively young institution created in March 1996, following the fusion of separate research institutes for agronomy and livestock research. Under a fourth sub-component research and extension activities will be funded by way of contracts drawn up between the provincial agricultural services and the research stations/centers, corresponding to those provinces. The services to be provided under these contracts include regular training by research staff of subject matter specialists on techniques, identified as priority by farmers; tests and trials in farmers' fields of potential solutions to priority problems identified during on-farm diagnosis; and the costs for researchers involved in carrying out on-farm diagnosis with extension staff and farmers. Under a fifth sub-component a Fund for on-station research on themes identified by the participatory diagnostic work will be established with joint IFAD/IDA finance. Access to this fund will be available to public and private research outfits on a competitive basis. Management of the fund will be entrusted to a eight-member Committee of representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Livestock, IRAD, the University of Dschang, AGROCOM, the Federation of Cameroon farmers, a representative of a women's' farming group and a representative of a small farmers' associations (such as FENAPAC) 13. The Training and Resource Management component will be the responsibility of a unit within the sub-Directorate for Agricultural Extension, represented at the center and in each of the 10 provinces. Local and overseas training will be programmed according to a training plan, agreed annually (see Technical Annex for 1998 training program). In addition to in-service training objectives for staff, resources under this component are included for developing a strategy for basic training of agricultural technicians. A further quantitative study is required to follow up on an FAO Study of the Reform of Agricultural Teaching and Training to determine the demand and supply for agricultural technicians. An outcome of this study could be the implementation of a pilot initiative to rehabilitate two/three agricultural colleges. The studies would be carried out by the Direction des Etudes et Projets Agricoles, in close collaboration with the appropriate services of the Secretariat General of the Ministry of Agriculture. The national project Coordinator's office will liaise closely with these offices on the proposed follow-up and rehabilitation work, which is not expected to begin before the third year of the project. 14. The Farmer Organization Support and Private Sector Linkages component will support efforts of the SOASP unit of PNVA to develop contractual, formal and informal contacts between farmer associations and groups and private sector suppliers of agricultural inputs, agricultural merchants, purchasers of agricultural products. Funding will be made available by the PNVA to improve communications between regional and provincial level specialists in farmers' associations and private sector linkages (SOASP), to fund training of farmer group representatives and enable group representatives to undertake study visits both within and outside Cameroon. 15. The Village-based participative community development pilot will be carried out under the overall coordination of the national PNVA unit by joint teams of staff from the Ministry of Agriculture's Community Development - 6 -  Department in collaboration with Subject Matter Specialists, SOASPs and Community Development Agents from the provincial and regional levels. The results of this pilot will be monitored and evaluated by the Ministry's Agricultural Projects and Studies Directorate, with a view to preparing a larger scale project for external funding, on the basis of successful implementation of the pilot. 16. Implementation Period - The project will fund the next four-year investment period in support of the national extension and research programs. Starting after credit effectiveness during the second semester of 1998, funding provided jointly by the Cameroon Government, IFAD, AfDB and IDA is sufficient to meet the program needs for extension and research activities in Cameroon's 10 provinces until June 2003. During the third year of the project, an evaluation of impact will be undertaken and preparation work on the next phase of external funding in support of the national programs will be defined. 17. Project Sustainability - The long term sustainability of the national extension program depends on: (a) the priority given to the program by MINAGRI decision-makers at the time of the formulation of the annual budget, (b) the design and implementation of effective measures to control better the release of funds allocated to extension under the Budget, (c) the speed at which cost sharing arrangements develop and the amount of budget resources this will eventually free for other uses, (d) the efficiency with which Government will achieve cost reduction through eliminating less priority activities and related sources of expenditure, and (e) the efforts of the Ministry to sub- contract certain extension activities to private partners and the extent to which this will provide opportunities for cost-sharing, particularly in respect of extension efforts for high value export crops. 18. Lessons learned from past operations in the sector - Over the last 10 years, the Bank has funded 5 projects in the agricultural sector in Cameroon. A National Agricultural Research project (Ln 2766-CM - closed 1993), a Cocoa Rehabilitation project (Ln 2912-CM - closed 1995) and a Livestock Sector Development project (Ln 3014-CM - closed in June, 1996). A Food Security project (Ln 3388-CM - three components of the project are still effective) and a National Agricultural Extension and Training project (Ln 3185-CM - which will close, when the new Credit has been approved) are still ongoing. With the exception of the latter, these projects have had only limited impact on improving growth in the agriculture sector and production and productivity of Cameroon's rural poor. ICRs concluded that project benefits were unsustainable. 19. Lessons learned and reflected in proposed project design: Lesson 1. Stand-alone project management structures rarely ensure sustainable institution building. The new project is designed to support IRAD and MINAGRI existing central and field structures, intended to ensure a permanent agricultural advisory service, capable of continuing, when external funding is no longer available. Lesson 2. Many Bank-funded projects have concentrated on capital-intensive investments and achieved few tangible results among beneficiaries on the ground. This project is field-orientated and support is concentrated on ensuring that more than 2,000 front line staff, researchers and subject matter - 7 -  specialists are provided with the means (training, transportation, supervision and light equipment) to respond directly to demand from their farmer clients. Lesson 3. Projects with a high degree of local participation in preparation have resulted in better results. The project and the national extension program has been fully designed by a national team, under Bank staff supervision but with no external technical assistance. Lesson 4. Decentralization of many decisions and activities to the provinces and independent financial and personnel management services have been responsible for improved efficiency under previous projects. Strengthening of these features has been included in the project design. Lesson 5. Experience with the ongoing extension project and projects elsewhere has underlined the importance of close contacts between research and extension, implication of the private sector, regular and continuous training, close participation of farmers and clear work programming. These are building blocks of the new project. Lesson 6. The IBRD-funded Research project experience underscored the importance of designing a research apparatus taking account of the recurrent cost burden on the State. Strong decentralization, client participation in research and application of private sector principles were recommended, which have been reflected in new project design. 20. Poverty category - The project will be a poverty-targeted intervention (PTI). A major thrust of the project is to coordinate the poverty alleviation and agricultural development policies of the Government. The project will address the problem of how to reach the poor and how to ensure that action is taken to solve their problems on a priority basis. Important modifications in the modus operandi of extension staff will be introduced to that effect. These include: participatory identification of different social strata at village level; identification of production problems affecting different social strata and by gender; there will be several contact groups consisting of representatives of different social strata and gender; continuous participatory diagnosis will be done with different contact groups; demand for services and identification of priority research themes will be recorded by different contact group identifying those which are common to all social strata, and those which are specific to poor farmers and women. Environmental aspects - The project is rated B for environment purposes. An environmental analysis was completed in June 1997, which includes an evaluation of the environmental impact of the ongoing PNVA, and recommendations for the next phase. The evaluation concluded that the PNVA has contributed to environment protection through promotion of technologies which tend to conserve resources and to mitigate the adverse effect of expanding agricultural production, particularly in the areas which are most fragile, such as the Northern and Western provinces. Recommendations for improvement include many detailed suggestions. Examples of the most important recommendations which can be implemented in practice, without endangering the demand driven policy of the PNVA include: further work on IPM to reduce the use of chemical pesticides, continued emphasis on composting to reduce need for chemical fertilizers, measures to prevent water pollution from treatment of highly toxic cassava varieties, more emphasis on associations of legume - 8 -  cover crops on fallow land. Participatory diagnosis of environmental problems should be included in the diagnostic work. A training program for extension staff, in particular for the newly created SMS-environment posts, and for the AVZ is recommended, including contracting training with the Universities special units on environment. These recommendations are included in the project design. A copy of the environmental analysis (in French) is attached to the present document. Program Objective Categories - Poverty (509) and WD (50%) 21. Project benefits - Project objectives envisage an increase in net farm incomes of 20 percent among farmers receiving extension services over the next four years. Examples under the ongoing project of the impact of the adoption of simple cost-effective messages, requiring little or no cash investment by farmers, have shown productivity and production increases of between 30 and 200 percent (see details in the Project Implementation Plan). Rates of adoption by contact farmers of new technology are expected to increase from 30 percent currently to 80 percent by the end of 2002, as improved training and mobility provide extension staff with the tools necessary to respond to farmers' needs. Extension staff objectives will be to reach directly one third of Cameroon's 1.3 million farm families by the 4th year of operations, up from one tenth in 1995/96. This represents a ratio of approximately 240 farmers contacted directly by each extension agent every fortnight - or 3 contact groups of 10 farmers met every day. These are within attainable limits. 22. Economic Rate of Return - The economic rate of return (IER) for the project, based on the incremental value of production from farm models prepared for the three main agro-ecological zones of Cameroon is 41 percent. The NPV, discounting at 10 %, is USD$27 million. The estimates are relatively insensitive to changes in the number of farmers contacted by extension staff and to changes in the costs of production. However, the IER is relatively sensitive to changes in local market prices (after taking account of deflationary impact of increased production on local market prices) and extremely sensitive to changes in yields and production. 23. Project Risks - Historical project experience and the overall poor state of the lending portfolio in Cameroon suggests a substantial level of risk for the successful outcome of this project. Among the specific risks figure (i) the quality of the manager appointed to coordinate the project; (ii) lack of improvement in levels of public service conditions; (iii) failure to adopt an efficient new mechanism for approval and release of funds from national budget; (iv) support for on farm research and training activities which are not rigorously tied to national extension staff development objectives; and (v) less than full transparency in the operation of the Competitive Research Fund. Contact Point: The InfoShop The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone No. (202)458 5454 Fax No. (202) 522 1500 Note: This is information on an evolving project. Certain activities and/or components may not be included in the final project. -9-  Processed by the InfoShop week ending May 29, 1998. - 10 -