In Nkoemvone, southern Cameroon, a sprawling site of over 300 hectares—only ten of which are developed—bears witness to a colonial past. A paved road cuts through the area, where weathered buildings stand in disrepair. A sign identifies it as the “Nkoemvone multipurpose agricultural station”, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Despite the decay, the station remains functional, mainly focusing on agronomic research: the multiplication and distribution of cocoa seedlings has become its primary activity.
Founded in 1944, this site is one of the enduring remnants of colonial modernity. The Nkoemvone Experimental Cocoa Station was part of what scholars term the “garden-object” within the French colonial empire, especially during the 20th century when plant reproduction took centre stage. Though less documented than counterparts like Bambey in Senegal, it played a similar role in migrating, introducing, and relocating plants—particularly cocoa varieties—to transform colonised societies. Its history was short-lived, and its ambitions ultimately clashed with the realities of an independent Cameroon.
The economic and social crisis of 1929, although softened in colonised Africa by metropolitan support, marked a profound shift in French colonial policies. It ended the barter economy and compelled the colonial state to take charge of infrastructure and export crops, while also addressing the living conditions of colonised populations. The state thus became “developmentalist”. This transition was confirmed at the Brazzaville Conference from January 30 to February 8, 1944, chaired by Charles de Gaulle, which aimed to revive the French economy and improve the fate of the colonised through planned development.
The goal of selecting high-yield cocoa trees
In agriculture, a dominant narrative emerged: African societies, seen as essentially peasant, could improve their lot by increasing yields through massive investment in farming. This logic led to a proliferation of agronomic research institutions across the French empire, with Cameroon as a key observation ground. By decree of June 8, 1944, Governor Eugène Paul Carras dissolved the Technical Council for Agriculture and Livestock and replaced it with three separate services: Agriculture, Livestock, and Forestry.
This reorganisation, more than a mere administrative measure, aimed to give agriculture a dedicated service. According to agronomist Pierre Barthe, former head of Cameroon’s agriculture service, in a 1946 report, the new Agriculture Service was structured into several sub-services. One of them primarily comprised agronomic research institutions, including three experimental stations at Dschang, Maroua, and Nkoemvone. All these stations were created between the wars, except for the Nkoemvone cocoa experimental station, founded in 1944 following the June 8 reforms. It was thus a product of the modernisation of colonialism that emerged in the interwar period.
The Nkoemvone cocoa experimental station was set up gradually. According to agronomist Raymond Juliat, head of the agriculture service in 1944, it was not initially established by a formal text, and its role was “the selection of the cocoa tree with a view to only popularising good producer subjects”. In 1947, 300 hectares were requisitioned for the station, but construction work stalled due to a lack of labour and materials, and “the absence of an overall plan”. Despite these difficulties, the colonial administration confirmed in 1948 its mission to cover all research and experimentation, before officially instituting it by regulatory text the following year. Construction then began, funded by the cocoa fund.
Forced labour at the station?
However, setting up the Nkoemvone experimental station faced major practical difficulties. As station director Jean Braudeau noted in his 1949 annual report, a shortage of personnel prevented construction, road development, and the creation of a nursery and 15 hectares of plantations. He managed to recruit some temporary workers from a nearby village, often paid by the task. Whether this labour was voluntary or forced remains difficult to determine: although High Commissioner Renée Hoffherr began prohibiting forced recruitment upon his arrival in 1947, it is known that French administration continued to mobilise forced labour until 1949.
To attract workers from beyond the region, the colonial administration chose to build housing within the station, a common practice among colonial administrations. These workers were tasked not only with construction but also with agronomic research activities.
Agronomist Achille Pacilly, who succeeded Jean Braudeau as head of the experimental station in 1949, revealed that a labour camp was first set up, consisting of twenty huts made from local materials. In 1956, fifty-eight permanent houses were built, housing 130 to 140 families a few years later. The establishment of the labour camp thus resolved the labour issue.
Alongside these dwellings, housing for senior staff was also erected. Research laboratories, a potable water supply and electricity, an infirmary, and numerous large-scale facilities such as nurseries and cocoa variety collection gardens were added. In short, the station was a site where living and research spaces were closely intertwined. The station’s development was completed in 1959, on the eve of the country’s independence.
A tool of colonial propaganda
Beyond a place of science, the Nkoemvone experimental station also functioned as a colonial propaganda tool for the French administration. This propaganda occurred in a particular Cameroonian context: the 1950s, marked by violent repression by the French army against Cameroonian nationalists. During the first phase of this conflict, whose brutality was most evident in the Bassa region—the cocoa-growing area of southern Cameroon—the Nkoemvone experimental station became an instrument for winning hearts and minds.
In 1958, André Boyer, a journalist and head of the propaganda service for the French administration in Cameroon, distributed a film entitled “The Nkoemvone Cocoa Centre” among the population. It was part of a repertoire of techniques aimed, in his words, “at bringing the misguided back to normal life and convincing the masses of the truly nationalist and sincere action of the Cameroonian government”.
The experimental station also served to showcase French achievements in Cameroon. This is evident in the 1958 report of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Trust Territories in West Africa concerning Cameroon under French administration. The UN-appointed writers and observers inspected the station on November 19, 1958, and stated: “The activities of this station consist essentially of selecting the best varieties of cocoa and producing cuttings for distribution to planters. It is hoped that by this means the present low-yielding trees in the plantations may be replaced by elite plants. The station has already given good results.”
At independence, this use of the station as a propaganda tool was taken up by the government of Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, this time in the service of international prestige. According to the station’s report covering 1961-1962, the institution received visits from the U.S. 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. Also visiting were the director of the École nationale d’administration in Paris and the World Bank’s director for Africa, among others. However, this international visibility, while serving the Cameroonian government, also marked the beginning of a gradual decline.
French oversight until 1975
After independence in 1960, the new states, including Cameroon, signed agreements with France that provided, for applied research, “an agreement on programmes, mixed financing for operations, a quasi-commitment from France to fund investments, and, within this general framework, the establishment of specific conventions detailing the modalities for setting up and managing the specialised institutes deemed necessary.”
These accords allowed France to continue administering the station, for instance through the appointment of former colonial agronomists like Jacques Liabeuf as station director. As noted by several scholars in 2000, the new Cameroonian state saw an advantage in this arrangement: it could concentrate its resources on higher education and training while leaving scientific research to France. French oversight ended only in 1975.
In the following decades, the station entered a period of decline, worsened by the economic and social crisis of the 1980s, which severely affected Cameroonian agronomic research. The sector suffered from a grave financial situation and a shift in its budget structure, leading to a stagnation of research within the station.
Extractivist ambitions become an obstacle
The crisis affecting agricultural research in Cameroon extended to the country’s entire scientific research sector. During its most acute phase, from 1990 to 1996, nationally funded research programmes were halted; only programmes and projects benefiting from external financial support continued more or less normally, despite delays in salary payments for staff. This situation led to reduced funding, discouragement of researchers due to salary devaluation, and the abandonment of many programmes, including those on cocoa at the Nkoemvone station, where scientific activity nearly ceased.
Around the turn of the 1990s, the station was transformed into a multipurpose agronomic research station, placed under the supervision of the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (Irad), created by presidential decree in 1996 and reorganised in 2002. This restructuring did not improve the institution’s situation; it continued to deteriorate. To the gradual decay caused by the economic crisis were added natural causes, worsening the state of disrepair at the Nkoemvone station. On March 17, 2006, a local newspaper published an article titled “Will the Nkoemvone station recover?”, in which journalist Paul Eboa revealed that a violent storm a few days earlier had destroyed plant trial spaces, damaged the administrative block, and ravaged numerous homes. Since then, the situation has not improved.
Paradoxically, the very size of the site, inherited from the extractivist ambitions of the station as a place for producing cocoa knowledge and transforming the environment, now stands as an obstacle to its rehabilitation due to insufficient resources. This relative state of abandonment is not solely explained by state disengagement, justified by successive crises and natural hazards. It also reveals deeper contradictions of a colonial modernity project whose overweening ambitions and extractivist imaginaries clash with the far more complex realities of the postcolonial period.
