Shea nut and butter production in Burkina Faso
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Vitellaria paradoxa ''Vitellaria paradoxa'' (formerly ''Butyrospermum parkii''), commonly known as shea tree, shi tree (), or vitellaria, is a tree of the family Sapotaceae. It is the only species in the genus ''Vitellaria'',Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to ...
. Termed "women's gold" by Burkinabé villagers, the nuts of shea tree can be collected and processed by crushing and grinding to yield shea butter, which is widely used in
soap Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...
and in
cosmetics Cosmetics are constituted mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources, or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics have various purposes. Those designed for personal care and skin care can be used to cleanse or protect ...
as a
moisturizer A moisturizer, or emollient, is a cosmetic preparation used for protecting, moisturizing, and lubricating the skin. These functions are normally performed by sebum produced by healthy skin. The word "emollient" is derived from the Latin verb ''m ...
,
salve A salve is a medical ointment used to soothe the surface of the body. Medical uses Magnesium sulphate paste is used as a drawing salve to treat small boils and infected wounds and to remove 'draw' small splinters. Black ointment, or Ichthyol ...
, or
lotion Lotion is a low-viscosity topical preparation intended for application to the skin. By contrast, creams and gels have higher viscosity, typically due to lower water content. Lotions are applied to external skin with bare hands, a brush, a clean ...
. Shea butter is also
edible An edible item is any item that is safe for humans to eat. "Edible" is differentiated from "eatable" because it does not indicate how an item tastes, only whether it is fit to be eaten. Nonpoisonous items found in nature – such as some mushroo ...
and may be used in
food preparation Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ing ...
; it is sometimes used in the manufacture of
chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
. The bark of the tree is also used as an ingredient in traditional medicines and the shell of nut is said to be able to repel
mosquito Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...
es and is also said to protect existing trees. Shea nuts are important in the economy of Burkina Faso. It is the country's third most important export, after
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
and
livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...
. In 1997, an average tonne of unprocessed shea nuts sold domestically for CFA700,000 (US$980) and overseas for CFA1,000,000 (US$1400). The most important centres of shea butter production are in
Sissili Province Sissili is one of the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso, located in its Centre-Ouest Region. In 2006 the population was 212,628 and in 2011 the population was 240,830, an increase of 13.3%. Its capital is Léo Léo is a proper noun in French, mean ...
and Ziro Province.


Sources

Shea butter is an oil extract from the
kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...
of the sheanut produce of the shea tree ''
Vitellaria paradoxa ''Vitellaria paradoxa'' (formerly ''Butyrospermum parkii''), commonly known as shea tree, shi tree (), or vitellaria, is a tree of the family Sapotaceae. It is the only species in the genus ''Vitellaria'',Sapotaceae 240px, '' Madhuca longifolia'' var. ''latifolia'' in Narsapur, Medak district, India The Sapotaceae are a family (biology), family of flowering plants belonging to the order (biology), order Ericales. The family includes about 800 species of ev ...
)''. It grows profusely in the wild without any special nourishment and attention. Every part of this indigenous tree is found to be useful. Its distribution is exclusive to
sub-Saharan Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African co ...
West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...
in the
savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland- grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
s, particularly in Burkina Faso where it provides economic sustenance to rural women. Its distribution extends from Senegal to Ethiopia and Uganda over stretch of savanna nearly a thousand kilometers long covering an area of 1 million square km of wooded grassland (about 500 million trees) across 19 countries of the region. The shea tree, though slow in its initial growth, has a useful fruit bearing life span of 15–20 years. Under indigenous farming system when clearing land for other agricultural activities, Shea trees are preserved and its exclusive plantation is restricted to avoid shading of other crops; however the operations of weeding and management of soil fertility adopted for other crops also facilitates shea tree growth. The shea fruit matures into the shea nut which has the shea kernel within it. The kernel is the source of the shea butter that is extracted through an arduous several hours of processing, over 22 steps, to produce 1 kg of the butter. In Burkina Faso, an impoverished country, it is the exclusive prerogative of rural women who number from 300,000 to 400,000. In the local
Dioula language Dyula (or Jula, Dioula, ''Julakan'' ߖߎ߬ߟߊ߬ߞߊ߲) is a language of the Mande language family spoken mainly in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Mali, and also in some other countries, including Ghana, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. It is one of ...
it is known as "Si" hi The
fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
s are shaped like large plums and have smooth skin with an egg-shaped nut with the kernel that yields the fatty shea butter.


Product

The product that is extracted as fat from the kernel of the shea nuts, which has five primary fatty acids namely, palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, and arachidic; stearic and oleic acids constitute 85–90% of the fatty acids. Though a fat, it is not extracted in a fluid state like other oils, but is processed in the form of a white, odourless, and nearly tasteless creamy paste or similar to firm butter. The shea butter produced in the Mossi plateau region of Burkina Faso has higher average stearic acid percentage and is thus harder than the shea butter from other West African regions; this is due to scientific inference that the phenolic content in shea kernels varies from region to region.


Quality

The quality of shea nuts and butter, both of which are also exported in large quantities from Burkina Faso, are basically dependent upon post harvest processing; in this process parboiling of shea nuts is carried out at the beginning of the season as it the eliminates germination and helps in faster drying. Better quality is obtained by sun-drying of the shea nut since smoking the nuts over a fire contaminates it with hydrocarbons.


Uses

The shea butter which is extracted from the shea nuts that is rich in vitamins and minerals, is vital to daily existence of the people as it is used to enhance the "taste, texture, and digestibility of the major regional dishes" as cooking medium. Other activities related to shea butter that enhances the financial income of the impoverished people consists of use as ingredient to make cosmetics, chocolates (as substitute for
cocoa butter Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter has a cocoa flavor and aroma. Its mel ...
) pharmaceutical applications and soap. Soap manufacturers use it typically in small amounts (5–7% of the oils in the recipe) as it has the property of leaving a small amount of oil in the soap. Other uses include as a waterproofing wax, for hairdressing and for candle-making. Its export potential is on account of its industrial production in Europe for separation into stearin for use with "cocoa butter equivalents or improvers (CBEs/CBIs) and margarines, and an oil fraction used as a low-value base for margarines and as a component of animal feeds." Its use is also noted in traditional African
percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
s to increase the durability of wood (such as carved djembe shells), dried
calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed ...
gourds, and leather tuning straps.


Medicinal uses

Bark of the tree is used to cure ailments in skin treatment in children and treat minor scratches and cuts. Shea unsaponifiables are used as
anti-inflammatory Anti-inflammatory is the property of a substance or treatment that reduces inflammation or swelling. Anti-inflammatory drugs, also called anti-inflammatories, make up about half of analgesics. These drugs remedy pain by reducing inflammation as o ...
treatment for arthritis and a topical treatment for excema and other skin conditions including
herpes Herpes simplex is a viral infection caused by the herpes simplex virus. Infections are categorized based on the part of the body infected. Oral herpes involves the face or mouth. It may result in small blisters in groups often called cold ...
lesions. A patented product "nutraceutical" is a shea product that has been developed for lowering
cholesterol Cholesterol is any of a class of certain organic molecules called lipids. It is a sterol (or modified steroid), a type of lipid. Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell mem ...
in humans. Its use as a base for medicinal ointments, has been claimed to have anti-inflammatory, emollient and humectant properties.


Exports

As an export commodity, the shea nuts, unprocessed shea kernels and processed shea butter, have been important, and in 2000 accounted as Burkina Faso's third most important export; the first two export products were cotton and livestock. Export to
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
for use in manufacture of chocolates was even better in 1970 and 1980s, and amounted to 22,000 tonnes in 1990. However, economic policies of restructuring changed this picture and caused decline in the trade. This created the need for a revisiting of the policies and resulted in participation of the NGOs such the Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation for financial and technical assistance, bilateral donors,
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
, the West African Office of the
United Nations Development Fund for Women The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, french: Fonds de développement des Nations unies pour la femme, ) was established in December 1976 originally as the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women in the Internationa ...
(UNIFEM), and many others.


Women's empowerment

In Burkina Faso, women have traditionally played a central role in the extraction of shea butter, from the stage of collection of shea nuts to its final processing into shea butter. However, the improved economic conditions of the shea trade had not permeated to benefit them and as result their participation had remained restricted to their local markets, while the men had garnered the large export market to Europe for the cosmetic industry; the wide disparity in returns to the local women is reflected in the fact that a tonne of unprocessed shea nuts which sold in 1997 locally for CFA 700,000 (US$980) and exported at CFA 1,000,000 (US$1400) sold at CFA 1,480,000 (US$2072) once processed into shea butter; a kilo of butter which sold locally at only a paltry equivalent of 60 cents to the women was worth two to three times as much in the international market. The export earnings were boosted due to shea butter’s use in cosmetics (for lotions, creams, soaps and other products) by well-known firms such as
L'Oréal L'Oréal S.A. () is a French personal care company headquartered in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine with a registered office in Paris. It is the world's largest cosmetics company and has developed activities in the field concentrating on hair color, ...
,
The Body Shop The Body Shop International Limited, trading as The Body Shop, is a British cosmetics, skin care and perfume company. Founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick, the company currently has a range of 1,000 products sold in about 3,000 stores, divided ...
and L'Occitane en Provence. These exports were monitored by UNIFEM to ensure benefits flowed directly to the local women involved in the industry; the L'Occitane purchase was engineered directly, bypassing middlemen, through the Union des groupements Kiswendsida (UGK), a network of more than 100 shea groups set up in Burkina Faso. As a result, shea butter exports for L'Occitane alone recorded an increase from 60 tonnes in 2001 to 90 tonnes in 2002, with greater share of the spoils reaching the women who produced it. The women were also trained in the trade to produce better quality product, as quality had declined in the recent past. This women empowerment process has imparted "a certain sense of self-respect among the workers. It has also helped the women producers earn the respect of their family and the right to speak out in the community."


See also

*'' Le Beurre et l'argent du beurre'', a 2007 film about shea butter production in the country * Shea Yeleen, a
social enterprise A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners. Social enterprises ca ...
that empowers and trains women-owned shea butter
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...
s


References


External links


Association pour la Sauvegarde des Valeurs Traditionelles
{{africa topic, Shea nut and butter production in Economy of Burkina Faso Crops originating from Africa
Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to ...
Plants used in traditional African medicine Women in forestry Women in Burkina Faso