Agrarian capitalism in east Cameroon

Abstract

The province of East Cameroon, located, more than 650 km. from the coast, was late in being penetrated, by European influence and. hence by capitalism. At present the forms of agrarian capitalism found, there are still embryonic. However, there is a beginning of a vigorous development of capitalist enterprises with the veritable invasion of this region by lumber companies from Ivory Coast. This is a phenomenon which it will be very interesting to study in depth later on. The forestry enterprise is highly labor-intensive, and in this under-populated region there will be problems, there are already problems of competition in the use of labour > between these capitalist enterprises and the traditional farms. A description of the patterns of traditional farming which we know quite well, as well as those of the forestry enterprises, could have helped us to glimpse the nature of the conflict but information on the latter is very difficult to obtain. Hence, for this first memorandum we will confine ourselves to presenting the general back- ground of the operations, i.e. the Eastern province and the main agricultural enterprises, leaving till later the gradual extension oi the debate on competition in the use of manpower.