Maize Cultivation: A Highly Profitable Short-term Investment with Low Risk.
Despite Cameroon’s natural potential to grow maize in all the 10 regions, Cameroon continues to experience a rise in the importation of corn and corn by-products, due to rising demand by the brewery and livestock industries.
Indeed, brewers and breeders are forced to import the corn and by-products they need for their operations because the local production is insufficient to meet the demand. Maize cultivation is done mainly on subsistence scale (household consumption) as a conventional habit.
Cameroonians continue to look away from investing in this crop which takes between 125 days to rip the fruits of their investment. Non the less, the enormous potential of commercial maize cultivation is picking up steam across the country with the increasingly growing demand, and low cost of land and labour.
The average cost of Cultivating a hectare of Hybrid Maize seeds purchased from IRAD (Cameroon’s Agricultural Research and Development Institute) ranges between 300,000 and 350,000 FCFA with yields ranging between 5 to 7 tons per hectare.
Selling price per kilo ranges between 130FCFA to 180FCFA.
Download Maize Cultivation Guide here
Cameroon continues to experience a rise in the importation of Corn and by products, due to rising demand by the brewery and livestock industries.
Indeed, brewers and breeders are forced to import the corn and by-products they need for their operations because the local production is insufficient to meet the demand. Despite this, many Cameroonians continue to look away from investing in this crop which takes between 3 to 4 months to rip the fruits of their investment.
This article brings to light the profitability of this product.
Maize seasons
Maize cultivation in Cameroon is still widely traditional and rainfed. Hence planting is done twice a year since it relies on the rainy season; (March – June) (July or August- November).
Maize Cultivation breakdown (1 hectare)
The average cost of cultivating a hectare of Maize in Cameroon ranges between 250.000fcfa – 300.000. With labour relatively cheap in the rural areas. Average yield be hectare with Hybrid seeds ranges between 4 to 6 tons provided the farm is fertilized twice before harvest.
Since the outbreak of Covid-19 cost per kilogram of corn ranges between 140Frs – to 180Frs in the heart of the rainy season (June – August).
Thus, investing in a hectare of Maize would yield an average total revenue between 800,000 FRS to 1,080,000 FRS, quarterly.
Below is an estimated breakdown of maize production cost per hectare if you are renting land.
Cost of renting a hectare of land annually in Cameroon ranges between 40.000Fcfa to 60.000Fcfa in rural areas.
Average cost of cultivating maize per hectare | |
Element | Cost |
Land | 40,000 to 60,000 |
Clearing | 40,000 |
Planting | 40,000 |
1st fertilization (10days) | 50,000 |
Weeding | 25,000 |
2nd fertilization (Nitrogen) | 50,000 |
Harvesting | 30,000 |
Threshing | 30,000 |
