Farmers’ Accessibility to Pesticides and Generalization of Farming Practices besides the Legal Framework in Northern Bafou, in the Bamboutos Mountains (West Cameroon)

Abstract

The use of pesticides improves farmers’ potential yield, but handling them with inexperienced hands increases the risk of human contamination and environmental pollution, and also reduces any prospect of sustainable agricultural development. Based on semi-structured interviews with pesticides dealers and other resource persons on the one hand, and a questionnaire administered to 120 households in the locality of Northern Bafou, this study highlights the environmental challenges posed by the widespread uncontrolled use of plant protection products. There is a wide range of pesticides found in Northern Bafou, marketed by  dealers in different categories, ranging from authorized and unauthorized shops to unskilled street vendors, whose essentially mercantile objective has led to the availability of these products even to peasants not always aware of the dangers incurred by their misuse. This dysfunction contrasts with the existence of an expanded legal and institutional framework in Cameroon for the management of pesticides, that is not implemented effectively.