Market survey of Garcinia kola (Bitter kola) in Yaoundé city, Cameroon

Bc. Ondřej Přibyl

Master's thesis

Abstract:

This study describes vendors of Garcinia kola (bitter kola) in Cameroon capital city Yaoundé, determines their type, prices, selling practices and knowledge about bitter kola potential utilisation. Bitter kola is a medicinal plant species that is predominantly collected in the forests of western Africa with very limited knowledge on its chemical composition as well as on commercialization and market-chains. Thus, the aim of the survey was to document typical sellers of bitter kola in agrarian market placed in the capital city of Yaoundé. We focused on four districts with increasing distance from city centre and two markets. Total number of 71 respondents selling bitter kola participated in our survey, 36 street vendors, who were further divided into street mobile-vendors and stall-holders and 35 market traders. We applied semi-structured questionnaires with both closed and open-ended questions. Based on our results, most of the seeds were traded by market traders, consisting predominantly of women (86%) with an average age of 49.9 (SD 9.92) years, selling bitter kola to a very diverse group of customers. Street mobile-vendors were predominantly young boys (95.6%) with average age of 15.6 (SD 3.16) years for whom it was a seasonal job to earned cash to cover their school fees. They operated close to main streets in Yaoundé with taxi drivers as main costumers. Last group of vendors were stall-holders, mainly women (58.3%) with average age of 38.5 (SD 7.56) years, situated far from main communications and selling a wide range of products to passing-by people. All types of sellers differed in selling prices and selling volumes. While street mobile-vendors and stall-holders used three seeds (approximatelly 15 g) as the main unit at an average price of 100 CFA (0.15 euro), market traders used mainly cups (approximatelly 150 g) for 500 CFA each (0.76 euro). Generally, most traders came to Yaoundé city from the Western region of Cameroon and as well as the majority of bitter kola seeds. However, there was not proven connection between seed flow and vendors origin. Survey showed important role of collectors as most of vendors (54.8%) were purchasing bitter kola directly from them. Finally, majority of vendors (88.7%) stated selling seeds of bitter kola for their medicinal potential, mostly as a treatment against stomach or digestive problems. Study concludes that bitter kola seeds were commonly traded in the study area as medicinal plant and generated additional cash income for vendors.

Keywords

Garcinia kola, market-chain, medicinal plants, non-timber forest products, vendors, Yaoundé, Cameroon

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 26. 4. 2017

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Vladimír Verner, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / Animal and Food Sciences in Tropics and Subtropics