Wealth Creation through Shea Butter Extraction
Tamale-based women’s group solicit government support
Shea Butter is produced from shea nuts obtained from the Shea nut tree. These trees grow in the wild and are not cultivated. In the towns and villages around Tamale, the Northern Regional capital, women traditionally engage in a number of activities including making and selling shea butter to boost their incomes.
The Shea nut tree is an integral part of the lives of the people in northern Ghana, particularly the women. It has helped conserve the ecosystems in the semi-arid regions of the north of Ghana. Traditionally, the Sheanut tree belongs to the entire community and cannot be owned by individuals even when found on private property. It is a critical income source for the people when everything else fails, and recognized as the provider of succour and relief.
The Chairperson of TUSEWA, Madam Stella Nitori, points out that; ‘God knows about the poverty situation and the dry land in this part of Ghana, and therefore, intentionally blessed the land, with shea nut trees, and made this crop, disease free. These shea trees are, our God given gold and cocoa in Northern Ghana’. ‘We are convinced that the Shea butter industry can deliver meaningful local employment and decent income for our communities that produce them’.
TUSEWA wants the Government to implement policies and initiatives towards the establishment of a shea butter industry in northern Ghana. With support from the BUSAC Fund, they have engaged in discussion on this subject with influential public officials, opinion leaders, chiefs, ‘magazias’ and other women groups.
‘We do not want to remain saddled with the income we presently receive for all our hard work, only for others to buy the nuts and butter at very low prices, sell them out internationally at high prices, make all the profits, and leave us here in the North in continued poverty’, Stella states emphatically.
It is estimated that over 90% of Shea nuts collected in Africa are exported to western industrialized countries to make shea butter for the manufacture of profitable beauty products. Unfortunately however, the people, usually women, whose hard work produces the nuts, often have little to show for it. TUSEWA want this situation to change dramatically for the better, and are confident that it would be sooner than later. ‘With all that we have achieved so far with BUSAC’s support, it is only a matter of time before Shea Butter extraction is placed on the national development agenda, with a place of importance, as an income earner for many women in the northern regions of Ghana’, a member of TUSEWA, with a confident smile discloses.
