By Jo Foster in Cameroon

As cocoa prices soar because of the crisis in Ivory Coast, many farmers in Cameroon are finding their business is booming.

The Ivory Coast is the world's biggest cocoa producer.

But even though the failed coup attempt there has been followed by a ceasefire, farmers in Ivory Coast still have problems getting their cocoa to the country's main ports.

Shipments are down to about a quarter of what they were last year and that keeps causing problems for the world cocoa market.

The knowledge economy

Mayuka, a bustling town in the English speaking northern region of Cameroon, is the heart of the country's cocoa industry.

The pot holed dirt roads are populated with mobile phone shops, and although most of the houses don't have glass windows they may well have internet access.

As Macmillan Takere explains, these days his fellow cocoa farmers don't like to be left in the dark.

"With the advent of computers and with websites knowledge is not hidden. Before it used to be," he says.

"Everybody is becoming aware. People put up their websites minute by minute, so the time for ignorance is gradually fading away".

Cashing in

And what the farmers are seeing now is opportunity.

The price may have dipped after reaching record highs, but they still want to cash in.

"Because of the rapid increase of price in cocoa, I've made up my mind to extend my farm in the planting of cocoa"

Frederick Chee, farmer

Mr Takere says the farmers believe the price of cocoa will remain high for the next two or three years.

"They have a hate of what is causing the price to be high - the trouble in the Ivory Coast - but when all diplomacy is said and done they don't believe it is going to be resolved fast," he says.

"And they also know that the farmers of the Ivory Coast will be out of their farms. It will take time for them to get their farms back up to standard, [and until then] the price in Cameroon will remain high, so they are very confident."

The lure of money

Frederick Chee has a palm plantation on the coast but the cocoa price has lured him to consider alternatives.

"Because of the rapid increase of price in cocoa, I've made up my mind to extend my farm in the planting of cocoa," he says.

"Finance is one of my crisis for now. We are planning to see how we can raise some capital to see how we can start the project."

"We are confident that if we do something now, within the five years to come we will have better production."

False hopes?

But back in Douala, officials at Cameroon's own National Coffee and Cocoa Board are not so confident.

The board's Jean Assogo points out that prices need to stay high for at least five years for the farmers to get a return on their investment.

"If now you want to extend your farm it takes you three years so that the new plants give more produce," he says.

"If the price falls, you've lost money. That's the problem."

"We don't wish that the Ivory Coast remains in war [so that we can] win more money, we don't want that - but if there is stability, there will be more cocoa, and that's the problem."

Escaping the poverty trap

Hopes are high. Even so, most of Cameroon's farmers have doubled their income during the past year.

Anthony Kimbi, a cocoa buyer based at Douala port, says whatever happens now, for many growers the bumper year will provide an escape from the poverty trap.

"Farmers here in Cameroon try to diversify their income because they have just one single crop that they rely on as a source of their income," he says.

"Those who used to buy about five pigs will buy 10 this year and then they will have enough to invest in their health and the education of their children and so on, so it's a very nice season for them."