Labour use on smallholder food and cash crop forms : the case of momo division, North-west province, Cameroon

This study investigated labour use on smallholder food (cocoyam) and cash (coffee) crop farms in Momo Division, North-West Province, Cameroon, mainly because of competition for available labour between them in the area.
Multi-stage ·random sampling technique was u ed to select six villages and 120 farmers. Pretested questionnaires were administered to these farmers. Descriptive statistics and production function model were used to analyse the data. Results showed that most of the farmers were above 40 years and 58.5 % had no formal education. Farm sizes ranged from l ss than a hectare to approximately four hectares for cocoyam and less than one hectare to seven hectares for coffee. Most (55.2), of the farmers have been farming for over 20 years. Land ownership was mostly

_through inheritance. The average number of farm'•fields was 3.4 for cocoyam and 1.6 for coffee. On the aggregate, family labour ranked first followed by exchange/communal labour and labour for the two crops. Women contributed most of the labour· (70.6%) in cocoyam production while men contributed most in coffee production (58.5%).
Weeding took 31.4% (highest) of the total labour required for cocoyam production, while harvesting took 52.9% (highest) for coffee production. Mixed cropping is the commonest cropping pattern.