Accra, Ghana, March 20, 2019//-The shea industry in Ghana occupies an important place in the economic development agenda of the country, because of its role in job creation, industrial development and growth of national economy.
Besides, the shea industry can promote regional development in Africa.
A study commissioned in October 2010 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) into how the shea industry in Ghana performed during the period of the global financial crisis revealed that, with the exception of companies exporting shea nuts and butter, all other actors in the industry complained about poor markets.
The report titled: ‘The Impact Of The Economic Crisis On Local Small And Medium Industries: The Case of Shea Butter Industry In Ghana’, which was conducted by the Centre for Continuing Education and Inter-disciplinary Research (CCEIR) of the University for Development Studies (UDS) for UNDP, said evidence surprisingly showed that companies that exported shea nut and butter did not suffer much partly due to the fact that they had enough stock to meet international market demand during the crisis period.
Demand for the commodity is high as shea products have multiple uses; the butter can be used as cooking oil, or be processed into inputs for cosmetics, soap, confectionary and pharmaceuticals.
Over the past decade, demand for shea butter produced in West Africa has increased by more than 1,200 percent. In 2012 an estimated 350,000 metric tonnes of kernels were exported from West Africa, with a market value of about US$120million.
The shea nuts industry’s value chain is an economic driver for a lot of rural women farmers in the northern sector of Ghana as the commodity serves as employment generation, industrial development and growth of the national economy.
In 2016 it was estimated that earnings from the sector stood at US$175 million, comprising export revenues from the raw nuts and processed butter.
It is estimated that about 9.4 million shea trees are in the country, and these can potentially yield one hundred tonnes of shea nuts worth about US$100 million per year.
A USAID Report prepared in November 2004 for West Africa Trade Hub (WATH) estimates that Ghana had a minimum total annual production potential of 200,000 tonnes of sheanut.
The Report puts the production level at 130,000 tonnes out of which 70,000 tonnes is being consumed locally and the remaining 60,000 tonnes exported.
Figures for the exports show that 45,000 tonnes was in the form of shea kernel, while 15,000 tonnes was in the form of shea-butter.
The shea industry is gender biased in favour of women – women usually work together and help each other, which make the work easier, more interesting and relaxed.
It is interesting to note that in Northern Ghana for instance, the processing of shea butter is reserved for women. This exclusive right gives the women the opportunity to generate personal income, or provide a source of income for them; hence the shea butter being referred to as “Women’s gold”.
Additionally, in rural communities, females in every family are involved into the shea butter process. Not only women, even small kids (boys) and young girls help their mothers.
Adolescent girls from age twelve are supposed to know how to make shea butter process from the beginning to the end. In short, women and children are responsible to harvest, process and sell shea butter.
Women gather in groups and cooperatives and men never interfere with shea butter business. Therefore, selling shea butter insures economic independence for many women not only in northern Ghana, but also in other rural parts of Africa, where shea butter is made.
Shea butter production is a good way for women empowerment and it at least contributes to a better life standard for women who make it day by day.
Like other local businesses in the country it is beset by a number of challenges. The 2010 UNDP report identified two major impact transmission channels through which the crisis hit the shea industry and they include low demand for shea products in the local market and limited credit facility availability to meet demand. The two factors, in turn, caused downward adjustment of price and down-sizing or collapse of most small businesses.
The report urged policy makers to focus on interventions that link small business owners in the shea industry to reliable markets rather than focusing on the supply side, adding that emphasis should be placed on strengthening existing markets while creating new ones. For instance, it said the market for shea butter in the African sub-region is low and this should be strengthened in order to encourage regional trade in shea commodities, stressing that “the government of Ghana can also support procurement by buying shea commodities from small enterprises”.
The report finally implored entrepreneurs in the shea butter sub-sector to be more aggressive and proactive in seeking out and exploiting new business opportunities. Aside value addition which is a strategy being adopted by some entrepreneurs, the report advocated that there was the need to develop their capacity further in key areas such as resource mobilization, efficiency of resource allocation, market opportunity identification, product quality promotion and business development.
In spite of the high economic prospects in the industry the not so clear-cut policies of various governments have made some people cut down shea trees to burn charcoal in some communities in the shea producing areas..
Industry operators heaved a sigh of relief last year when the Ghana Export and Import Bank (EXIM Bank) announced the approval of an amount of 9.2 million Ghana cedis for the processing of shea into cosmetic products and also for export.
In the announcement the bank explained that, “We have come to realise that in the three northern regions, the shea nut industry is very thriving and therefore the bank has decided to come out with a project which is the Shea Empowerment Initiative with an amount of more than nine million Ghana cedis to support the capacity building and financing of the women in that industry from the picking, processing and export”.
On its part the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), which has the mandate to direct and implement policies of government for the growth of the industry must not concentrate on cocoa alone to the detriment of the shea industry.
By Oppong Baah, African Eye Report
