Abstract

Tomato has continually gained importance in Cameroon. While it was widely cultivated in other regions of the country, over the last decade, the southwest region has been a key region in tomato production, despite remaining in the hand of smallholders.

While it was considered an orphan crop, overtime it has joined other crops that are traded internationally as about 1% of tomato produced in Cameroon is exported to countries like Nigeria and other countries of the CEMAC region.

This implies that tomato producers face competition from producers from other countries. The government in a bid to foster tomato production has been directly subsidizing the production of tomato through inputs. In this light, it is important to evaluate if government intervention is worthwhile.

This study thus had as goal, to evaluate the competitiveness and comparative advantage of tomato farms in Fako. The policy analysis matrix (PAM) was employed in this study. The findings of this study reveals that tomato production is inefficient and that farm inputs (seeds) are being taxed and farmers pay a price which is higher than the existing border price. In addition, the value of output domestically is lower than that in the international market.

This explains the fact that farmers are not protected and they operate under free trade. Farmers also receive a negative incentive to boost their production and Fako is socially inefficient despite having a comparative advantage in the production of tomato.

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