The shea nut industry has evolved over sometime now moving from basically a local commodity used by rural folks especially women in Northern Ghana for various economic activities and cultural activities. The Shea nut industry is a women field because it is dominated by women. From shea nut, women extract shea butter for domestic use and for some cultural ceremonies. Because it’s a seasonal commodity, mostly rural women pick the shea fruit and extract the shea nut from it before it is then taken through a very laborious process to extract the shea butter.
In the local setting, shea nuts are part of some required iterms for the performance of funerals. Same way, shea butter is a key ingredient in the performance of funerals and cultural activities in northern Ghana. Shea butter is also a staple oil that is used by women for cooking and is also used as cosmetic both for the skin and hair. It also medicinal.
There is however a new development in this sector which has either escaped stakeholders or that they seem not to care and if the appropriate measures are not instituted, I fear we risk losing both economic and cultural value of this great commodity.
Because of its importance in the pharmaceutical, confectionery, cosmetics, the product has gained global importance and that has resulted in the increase in the exportation of shea butter from Northern Ghana to China and Europe. The Future Market Insights reported that the global market value of shea butter was expected to reach 5.58 million United states dollars as at 2023. The Ghana Export Promotion Authority in 2022 also estimated that the export of shea butter was worth 92.6 million United States dollars or 38,792 tonnes.
Called women gold, shea nut and shea butter has conferred on women a level of respect and recognition and power that other economic sectors would not confer on them. It has given women in northern Ghana an economic avenue to escape poverty and domestic respect. The sector has empowered many women and made them self-reliant.
However, the crazy demand for shea nut by international industries if not checked is likely to deny many rural women their source of livelihood and empowerment. The tones of shea butter that is exported deny the local shea butter producers’ access to their raw materials. This high demand for the raw shea nuts and its attendant scarcity has contributed to the high increase in the price of shea butter. The product is becoming one for the rich and if not checked, though the country will be reaping huge dollars from its exportation, the local economy and the rich cultural aspects of the local people risk collapsing.
The local women complain that they have been cashed out of their business because those with huge financial muzzles are buying the raw share nuts at sometimes cheaper prices and shipping them down south or outside the shores of Ghana to their disadvantage. They have therefore appealed to the local authorities and central government to take measures to avert the eminent collapsing their local business.
WAY FORWARD
The Ghana Export promotion is doing well by encouraging the extraction of the shea butter locally before export with the support of some organisations and companies, and the strong involvement in the local production of shea butter by NGOs like, ATARAH Ghana, Asheba, USAID, Association of Church Development Projects, and Fair Trade Organisation. This regardless, the Shea Nut unit under COCOA Board and the Ministry of Trade of Ghana would have to check the activities of some of these companies and organisations from smuggling the nuts out of the country.
Government must also take deliberate and committed initiative to establish a shea butter processing factory in at least two districts each of the five regions of Ghana. This will retain the employment statues of both the shea pickers and those in the extractive sectors of this field.
mywordfmonline.com/Simon Agana Blessing