The first International Plantain Festival, organized by the National Association for Actors of the Plantain Sector in Cameroon (FBPC), was held from 30 November to 2 December in Ebolowa and Mvangan in the South Cameroon Region. The ceremony was chaired by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), Gabriel Mbairobe, in the presence of the Governor and all four Senior divisional officers of the South Region. Stakeholders in the sector synergized for the sustainable transformation of the plantain sector in Cameroon. IITA–CGIAR joined the actors to share its experience and the solutions it offers in this field.
The festival’s first edition constituted a valuable pool of know-how and expertise to contribute to the modernization of plantain farming, processing, and marketing. The initiative to promote the plantain sector is not random, as plantain is the third most consumed food in Cameroon and is one of the crops in which Cameroonian agriculture has made significant progress. Moreover, Cameroon’s National Development Strategy (NDS30) intends to increase the production of this crop and has set its production target at 10 million tons by 2030.