Women in shea nut trade back to business

Mma Azara and her sister drying shea nuts

WOMEN who collect and sell shea nuts in Tamaligu, a farming village in the Savelugu-Nanton district of the Northern Region, are back to active business.

Their business slowed down drastically for several years when the road they use to transport the nuts to market centres deteriorated and virtually became impassable during the rains.

That particular stretch of road is a 4.5km feeder road that links the community to Kukuobila, another town in the district that is located off the Tamale-Bolgatanga highway.

Luckily for the women and the entire village, the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) intervened and awarded the road on contract for rehabilitation.

The NRGP is an eight-year agricultural project jointly funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Government of Ghana and is being implemented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA).
Following the completion of rehabilitation works on this feeder road, the women are happily back to business and have began transporting several bags of shea nuts to market centres.
“We send the nuts to markets in Savelugu and Tamale to sell,” the largest trader of shea nuts in Tamaligu, Mma Azara Issah mentioned when the Daily Graphic visited the community.
She said when the road was in a poor shape, they had to wait in the dry season to transport the shea nuts using donkey carts and it was costly and time-consuming.
Mma Azara said because the road had been put in a good shape, big buyers of shea nuts now prefer to bring their trucks to the village to buy the nuts.
“So we do not even go to the market, because they come here for the nuts,” she said, adding that it had made life easier for them and their families.
Mma Azara is the second wife of her husband and she has seven children, the youngest being 3 years.
She said apart from the two elder ones, the rest were in school and that the income she makes from the shea nut business was what she was using to support her husband and in the upkeep of the home.
Each year, she is able to aggregate up to 80 bags of shea nuts that she buys from other women in the community who go into the bush to pick the nuts.
“Last year, we sold a bag of shea nuts between GH¢25 and GH¢40. Even though this is not so good, it is better than none,” she said.
In addition to the shea nut business, Mma Azara also cultivates maize, groundnuts and soya beans on a three-acre land.
“I use the maize and some of the soya beans and groundnuts to feed the family and sell the rest,” she mentioned.
The leader of the women in the community, known as the ‘magazia’, Mma Lamisi Yakubu said the rehabilitation of the road had not only improved their shea nut business, but also improved their general wellbeing.
“When the road was bad, travelling to Kukuobila was very difficult.

Anytime, somebody was sick, we had to put the person on a bicycle and push it through the muddy road to get to Kukuobila before we could get a car,” she lamented.

“Now, we use motorbikes without any difficulty and when we need cars, they come into the village without hesitation,” she further noted.
Mma Lamisi commended the NRGP and the government for rehabilitating the road.
She however entreated the government to extend electricity to the community to enable them establish a grinding mill.
“With a grinding mill, we can also process the shea nuts into oil and butter,” she stated.
The rehabilitation of feeder roads that link to farming communities is a part of the infrastructural component of the NRGP.
The other components are focused on strengthening commodity value-chains, providing matching grants to farmers for equipment purchase and building the capacity of financial institutions to provide financial services to actors in the value-chains.
(Also published in the Daily Graphic, July 17, 2013, p. 13)