…At the Cameroon Sugar Corporation (Société Sucriere du Cameroun, SOSUCAM), the year 2023 came to a close on a grim note: the death of a man named Mballa Olomo.

The temporary worker lost his life as a result of burns suffered in a work accident that occurred in December at one of the company’s plants based in Nkoteng…The 43-year-old town native had been a seasonal worker at the industrial agriculture company for about ten years. The company is a subsidiary of the French group SOMDIAA…

These companies are also frequently at odds with the local communities and small-scale farmers…

These conflicts between the industrial agriculture plantations and neighboring communities are continuous, whether it be in Nkoteng or Mbandjock, where SOSUCAM operates, or in Edéa or Dibombari, where the Cameroonian palm oil producer SOCAPALM owns sweeping hectares of land planted with oil palms. The same scenario can be seen in the town of Tibati, where the company Tawfiq Agro Industry, which plans to develop pastoral farms, is located, and in Campo, a town where the company Cameroon Vert (CAMVERT) wants to deforest thousands of hectares of village land to plant oil palms in the Congo Basin…