In Nkoemvone, a locality within Southern Cameroon, lies an expansive site spanning over three hundred hectares, with ten hectares currently developed. This area, bisected by a paved road and dotted with dilapidated structures, is officially recognized by a plaque as the “Nkoemvone multipurpose agricultural station.” Operating under the purview of Cameroon’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the station, despite its crumbling infrastructure, remains active, primarily focusing on agronomic research, with cocoa plant multiplication and distribution now its foremost endeavor.
Established in 1944, this location stands as a significant relic of colonial modernity. The “Nkoemvone Experimental Cocoa Station” embodies what historian Hélène Blais terms the “object-garden” within the French colonial Empire, especially during the 20th century when plant reproduction became a dominant activity. While less extensively documented than other colonial stations, such as Bambey in Sénégal, Nkoemvone nonetheless played a similar role in facilitating the migration, relocation, and introduction of plants, specifically cocoa varieties. Its objective was to induce agricultural and societal transformations within colonized communities. Ultimately, its operational history proved brief, and its ambitious goals soon confronted the challenges of an independent Cameroon.
The global economic and social crisis of 1929, though somewhat mitigated in colonial Africa by the metropolitan power’s buffering role, profoundly reshaped French colonial policies. It effectively curtailed the traditional trading economy, compelling the colonial state to invest directly in infrastructure and export crops. Concurrently, this shift necessitated greater attention to the living conditions of colonized populations, transforming the colonial state into a “developmentalist” entity. This pivot was solidified at the Brazzaville Conference, held from January 30 to February 8, 1944, and presided over by Charles de Gaulle. The conference pursued a dual agenda: to revitalize the French economy and to improve the welfare of colonized peoples through planned development initiatives.
“Promoting high-yielding subjects”
Regarding agriculture, a prevailing narrative emerged: African societies were primarily perceived as agrarian, and therefore, improving their lot hinged on significantly boosting yields through massive agricultural investment. This logic spurred a proliferation of agronomic research institutions across the French Empire, with Cameroon serving as a crucial observation ground. Through an order issued on June 8, 1944, the governor of French Cameroon, Eugène Paul Carras, dissolved the Technical Council for Agriculture and Livestock, replacing it with three distinct services: the Agricultural Service, the Livestock Service, and the Forestry Service.
This organizational overhaul transcended mere administrative adjustment; it aimed to establish a dedicated agricultural service. According to agronomist Pierre Barthe, a former head of Cameroon’s agricultural service, in a 1946 report, this new Agricultural Service was structured into several sub-services. One key component comprised agronomic research institutions, including three experimental stations located in Dschang, Maroua, and Nkoemvone. All these stations, with the exception of the Nkoemvone experimental cocoa station, were established during the interwar period. The Nkoemvone station, founded in 1944 following the June 8 reforms, thus stands as a prime example of this colonial modernization, which had begun to take shape between the world wars.
The Nkoemvone experimental cocoa station was implemented in stages. Agronomist Raymond Juliat, who led the agricultural service in 1944, noted that initially, the station lacked a formal legal text, its primary role being “the selection of cocoa trees with the aim of promoting only high-yielding subjects.” By 1947, three hundred hectares were allocated for its development, yet construction efforts stalled due to labor and material shortages, coupled with the absence of a comprehensive master plan. Despite these obstacles, the colonial administration reaffirmed the station’s mission in 1948 to encompass all research and experimental work, officially instituting it via regulatory decree the following year. Construction then commenced, financed by dedicated cocoa funds.
Forced labor concerns
The establishment of the Nkoemvone experimental station encountered significant practical hurdles. Jean Braudeau, the station’s director, highlighted in his 1949 annual report that a lack of personnel impeded construction, road development, and the creation of nurseries and 15 hectares of plantations. Nonetheless, he managed to recruit some temporary workers from a village adjacent to the experimental station site, often compensated on a task basis. The voluntary or coerced nature of this workforce remains a complex issue: although High Commissioner Renée Hoffherr began prohibiting forced recruitment upon his arrival in 1947, Cameroonian historian Léon Kaptué reminds us that the French administration continued to mobilize forced labor until 1949.
To attract workers from beyond the immediate region, the colonial administration opted to construct housing within the station itself, a common practice among colonial authorities, as historian Gwendolyn Wright observed. These workers were expected not only to contribute to the station’s construction but also to participate in agronomic research activities.
Agronomist Achille Pacilly, who succeeded Jean Braudeau as head of the experimental station in 1949, reported that a labor camp was initially established, comprising twenty huts built from local materials. By 1956, fifty-eight permanent housing units were constructed, accommodating approximately 130 to 140 families a few years later. The creation of this labor camp effectively resolved the persistent issue of workforce availability.
Alongside these worker accommodations, residences for senior staff were also erected. The station further developed with the addition of research laboratories, piped potable water, electricity, and an infirmary. Extensive facilities, such as nurseries and collections of cocoa varieties, were also established. In essence, the station evolved into an integrated site where living spaces and research areas were closely intertwined. The station’s development concluded in 1959, just before Cameroon gained independence.
A tool for colonial propaganda
Beyond its scientific function, the Nkoemvone experimental station also served as an instrument of colonial propaganda for the French administration. This propaganda unfolded within the unique context of Cameroon in the 1950s, a period marked by violent repression by the French army against Cameroonian nationalists. During the initial, brutal phase of this conflict, primarily concentrated in the Bassa region of Southern Cameroon’s cocoa belt, the Nkoemvone experimental station became a strategic tool in the effort to win over public opinion.
In 1958, André Boyer, a journalist and head of the French administration’s propaganda service in Cameroon, disseminated a film titled “Le Centre du cacaoyer de Nkoemvone” to local populations. This film was part of a broader array of techniques aimed, in Boyer’s own words, at “bringing the misguided back to normal life and convincing the masses of the truly nationalist and sincere actions of the Cameroonian government.”
The experimental station also allowed the French colonial administration to showcase its perceived benefits in Cameroon. This is evidenced in the 1958 Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Trust Territories in West Africa concerning Cameroon under French administration. The report’s authors and observers, who inspected the station on November 19, 1958, stated: “(…) The activities of this station consist primarily of selecting the best cocoa varieties and producing cuttings for distribution to planters. It is hoped thereby to replace current low-yielding trees in plantations with elite plants. The station has already yielded good results.”
This utilization of the station as a propaganda instrument was subsequently adopted by the government of Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, after independence, this time to enhance international standing. The station’s report for 1961-1962 reveals that it received visits from the United States Ambassador to Cameroon, the German Ambassador, and three African heads of state: Philibert Tsiranana of Madagascar, Léon Mba of Gabon, and François Tombalbaye of Chad. Other notable visitors included the director of the École nationale d’administration in Paris and the World Bank’s director for Africa. However, this period of international prominence, serving the Cameroonian government, also marked the onset of a gradual decline.
French oversight until 1975
Following the independence movements of 1960, newly sovereign states, including Cameroon, entered into agreements with France. These conventions stipulated that for applied research, there would be “an agreement on programs, mixed funding for operations, a quasi-commitment from France for investment financing, and, within this general framework, the establishment of specific agreements detailing the terms of establishment and management for specialized institutes deemed necessary.”
These agreements enabled France to maintain administrative control over the station, for instance, through the appointment of former colonial agronomists like Jacques Liabeuf as station director. As Jean Gaillard, Hocine Khelfaoui, and Jean Nya Ngatchou highlighted in a 2000 publication, the nascent Cameroonian state found this arrangement beneficial, allowing it to concentrate its resources on higher education and training while entrusting scientific research to France. French oversight finally ended in 1975.
In the decades that followed, the station entered a period of decline, exacerbated by the economic and social crisis of the 1980s. This crisis severely impacted Cameroonian agronomic research, which, according to the aforementioned authors, “experienced a grave financial situation and a modification in its budget structure,” leading to a stagnation of research activities at the station.
Extractivist ambitions become an obstacle
The crisis affecting Cameroonian agricultural research mirrored a broader decline across the country’s entire scientific research sector. During its most acute phase, from 1990 to 1996, “nationally funded research programs ceased; only programs and projects benefiting from external financial contributions continued somewhat normally, due to delays in personnel salary payments.” This situation resulted in reduced funding, researcher demoralization linked to salary devaluation, and the abandonment of numerous programs, including those focused on cocoa at the Nkoemvone station, where scientific activity virtually halted.
By the early 1990s, the station underwent a transformation, becoming a multipurpose agricultural research station under the authority of the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (Irad), established by presidential decree in 1996 and reorganized in 2002. However, this restructuring did little to improve the institution’s deteriorating condition. The gradual decay caused by the economic crisis was compounded by natural factors, further worsening the state of disrepair at the Nkoemvone station. On March 17, 2006, Cameroun Tribune published an article titled “Will the Nkoemvone station recover?”, in which journalist Paul Eboa revealed that a severe storm just days earlier had destroyed experimental plant areas, damaged the administrative block, and ravaged numerous housing units. Since then, the situation has not improved.
Paradoxically, the sheer size of the site, a legacy of the station’s extractivist ambitions as a hub for cocoa knowledge production and environmental transformation, now presents a major obstacle to its rehabilitation due to insufficient resources. This state of relative abandonment cannot be solely attributed to state disengagement, justified by successive crises and natural hazards. More profoundly, it exposes the contradictions inherent in a colonial modernity project whose grandiose ambitions and extractivist imaginaries ultimately clashed with the far more complex realities of the postcolonial era.
