Evaluating post harvest opportunities and constraints to utilization and marketing of African leafy vegetables in Cameroon

Abstract

A rapid production and market appraisal was undertaken to target important markets, commodities, producers and traders of vegetables (exotic and indigenous) in three regions of Cameroon. For each vegetable, post harvest losses were estimated and gross marketing margins were calculated and then used to estimate daily earnings. The main actors were women of between 17 and 50 years old with an average dailyearning of less than 1 000 FCFA (US$1 = 495 FCFA). The typical market woman sold 2.5 different products with a mean daily earning of 525 FCFA per product and a total daily earning of 893 FCFA. By groups, sellers of exotic vegetables, such as tomato and cabbage, earned significantly (p