Witness : Alexandre Betegne

« I can’t go on like this »

He could be considered just an average poultry farmer in The Cameroon. Poultry farming for meat is what he knows best. He has practised his trade with passion and interest since 1983. Usually each lot of new-born chicks numbers about 3000. Until now he has always done well. Alexandre Betegne, a retired security officer, father of 14 children among whom some are still at school and university, has never had to ask for food for himself or his family. He always gained more from his poultry farm than he put into it. However, unless he finds another job, some other source of income, he may well find himself begging for his daily bread. Whatever happens, he no longer wants anything to do with poultry. The losses he has occurred these last months have pushed him to the point of anger and abandon.

Mr. Betegne lives in a suburb of Yaoundé. Over a period of time, he put up his temperature controlled buildings and sheds for the chicks and chickens. A visitor to the farm in April 2002 would have been impressed initially by the amount of investment put into the place. However, as he entered some of the buildings the visitor would soon have noticed their state of disrepair. The latest addition to the sheds had simply been destroyed before its completion.  “I will recuperate the material to make an enclosure, because with everything I have lost in the farm, I can no longer continue”, says Mr. Betegne. All his plans to develop his business have been abandoned.

Mr. Betegne can see only one reason for his problem: the open sale of frozen chickens. “How can you expect a housewife to buy my chickens at 1800F when, just close by, frozen, pre-gutted chickens are sold for 900F the kilogramme? I have even seen people selling them wholesale for 500F”, complains the disenchanted farmer. He points his finger at the public authorities who remain insensitive to his decline.

The nightmare began in March 2001: “I took out a credit of 25,000F to hire a lorry to take my chickens to the market. My family and I worked the whole night to prepare the cages to transport the chickens. The next day I agreed to pay the transporter after selling the chickens. But, to my surprise, I did not sell a single chicken the whole day. In all my years as a poultry farmer I had not seen the like. I had to fix another day with the transporter and pay him the 50,000F in one go”. It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Mr Betegne had to face the facts. He had to stop this business that was losing so much. He dismissed his two salaried workers. He still has a few hundred of the 3000 chickens that he started in February 2002. Once he has sold them off, he will look for something else to do, unless, that is, this nightmare of frozen chickens were to disappear in the meantime from the market

This is the way for the Cameroonian poultry business faced with Frozen Foods. This is the way for animal breeders faced with present globalisation.

Marie Pauline VOUFO / la Voix Du Paysan
SAILD Cameroon

Here are some figures from the magazine « Afrique Agriculture », number 298, December 2001, which can help us understand this story. The figures quoted are for the port of Abidjan, in Côte-d'Ivoire, but they are the same as the port of Douala, in the Cameroon.

"As for chicken meat, these by-products of the West can arrive at the port of Abidjan for less than 500 F.CFA  per kilogramme... these are mainly rejects from Europe, America and Brazil and by-products such as chicken pieces » 

The rejected chickens are egg-layers at the end of their productive life, which can not be sold in Europe as they can only be cooked by boiling. They are off-loaded onto the world market at a derisory price of 30 to 65 FCFA per kilogramme (0.04 euros to 010 euros).