Snail Cultivation: Farmers Battling To Meet Growing Demand

It is the raining season and a comfortable breathing ground for snails. Vanel Kwadjio, a young entrepreneur at the Oyom-abang neighborhood in Yaounde says that her backyard is full of snails and at times she even finds it right at her doorsteps. “It is this way every raining season,” she stated before indicating she sees children storm her backyard in the evening and the early hours of the morning in search of the snails to use it as meat. Just like these children, eating snails for meals has long been associated with certain tribes in Cameroon but now the high demand from other parts of the country and beyond is makings snail a rare commodity. Apart from meat, experts say that slime is another major potential of snail used in producing mainly cosmetics.

With its numerous benefits, the snail found in Vanel’s backyard just like that of so many other Cameroonians cannot meet up with the demand. It is against this backdrop that several Cameroonians have gotten into snail cultivation which they call Heliculture or Heliciculture. This is the case of Awah Ntseh, who took one of the first steps in snail cultivation in Cameroon through his company called Famer’s Forte created in 2014.  He is into snail greenhouse farming for their slime alongside other household products like honey. “We produce weekly 2 littres of snail slime which is equivalent to 1,600 bottles of 60ml yearly with a bottle sold for 4,000,” he disclosed. However, the young entrepreneur revealed that the process of tapping snail slime is labour intensive. “We make sure that we harvest just a controlled amount which will not impair the snails’ further growth since they depend on slime to survive,” he underscored before revealing that, “We currently have over 10,000 snails which by this time next year will be 100, 000”. Asked of how he plans to multiply production, he explained that he carries out greenhouse snail farming which is ...