This study aims to evaluate the effects of collective marketing by farmers’ organizations
(FOs) on cocoa farmer’s price in Cameroon. This is done through the quasi-experimental
method, which uses the techniques of “Propensity Score Matching”. The data used
comes from the 2006 International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) cocoa
baseline survey conducted between March 15 and April 15, 2006 and involved 601 cocoa
farmers from the Centre region of Cameroon during the 2005/2006 season. The results
show that collective marketing has a positive and statistically significant effect on the
net price received by farmers. This effect is estimated at 334 FCFA per kilogramme of
cocoa sold collectively; that means a 6% increase on the individual sale price. The main
recommendation is to promote the development of FOs and collective marketing within
them. The development of FOs requires a government policy to support their creation,
and by extension, the effects of collective sales. The development of collective marketing
can be done through the creation of credit systems by FOs to attract farmers who sell
to individual buyers under the constraint of credit received. This would significantly
increase the share of supply captured by FOs.
