Creative Writing Contest Vol. 19 | Farming: How has the quality and quantity of the crops grown in your community changed over time?

Greetings steemians. Happy Sunday to you all. Hope you had a blissful worship.

source: google

I will be writing on tea cultivation in Ndu. Ndu is a sub-division in the Donga mantung in the north west region of Cameroon. Ndu is largely made up of subsistence farmers. The crops cultivated in this part of the country include: corn, Irish potatoes, beans, yam, vegetables in it's varieties, tea and many others. This subsistent farmers are expert in what they do.

Tea farming in Ndu started as far back the time of settlement. This was done only for consumption and not for sell. It was not also done in large scale but in a small scale per the family. Mostly, this tea was cultivated around the fence, at times it is used like fence itself round the compound.

Moreover, many people who didn't have interest in tea consumption started consuming tea and this led to an increase in the cultivation of tea and some people took it as a means to make money. Moving in my village, that is in Ndu, you will not go tow or three houses without seeing tea in a compound. Writing this post, I could picture my brother's house that was surrounded by tea and a kind of nice and beautiful picture when seen from a distance.

Some of the people went as far as owning a farm purposely for the cultivation of tea for marketing purposes. Many people got involved in this and cultivation of Ndu tea became a competition in that the consumption of tea increased. Many will come and buy to sell in other towns, villages and others bought to sell in their stores.

images (1).jpeg source: google

Further more, it was not long that it went up to a cooperative. Those who cultivated brought the tea to the cooperative and people buy from the cooperative. The coming of cooperative was a boast to the other farmer to start cultivating tea and a place was gotten for tea farming.

source: google

The cooperative grow and gave way to Ndawara. The name Ndu tea changed to Ndawara tea. He came in with factories. Machine to do the production. Those who were based on small scale tea farming were employ to work in the tea estate. He also got more land and expand the cultivation. Ndu or Ndawara tea is the largest tea estate in cameroon.

This is how the Ndu tea spring from nothing or low quality, quantity to hight quality and quantity. Grow from individual cultivation for individual consumption to an industry.

Thanks for reading.

Great write up there...
Let me find out to know something please. Could the history of Ndu Tea be connected to the weather conditions in town? When I lived there, I realized that the cold we talk about in geography is nothing compared to the reality. And be maybe your people engaged in it cultivation and consumption for this purpose: to cob with the climatic situations. Just wondering aloud you know...

Thanks for your compliment and the question. The cold contributed much to the cultivation.

Wow great write up , if tea cultivation was far back as settlement, it means it's due to the climatic condition

You are very true Sir

Ah Ndu. This very cold place.
Despite this, the inportance of this particular type of farming in Ndu is part of what is still putting Cameroon on the map because of the tea being grown there. Thanks for your post.

Woaw!!very impressive.

For me with tea the quality and quantity have negatively drop over time within that community. This is simply because of the anglophone crises which have led to the poor management of the estate

hanks for your comment Sir. It is true that the crisis has affected the tea estate but its can never be compare to when there was no cooperative or the estate. The quality and quantity now will not be fair to compare to the time of peasant farming. Thanks.

Very true bro. We just have to pray things come back to normal for us to regain our heritage

You did great.
But with regards to your image source. I don’t know if you could use the source link to the image rather than saying you took it from Google. Please if I am wrong I’m opened for corrections. Thank you.

Thanks for your suggestion

Please do well to complete the Newcomer's Achievement Program so that you can understand how to quote images.
Interesting to know how the Ndu Tea Estate started.

Thanks Sir. I should have done that but my achievement 1 is not verified yet