Shea Nut Pickers in the Upper West Region are collecting a lot of shea nuts this year but are worried, they will not reap the needed benefit because there is no fixed price for the nut.
The shea pickers who are mostly women are therefore calling on the government to regulate the pricing of the nuts and also provide them with basic tools to make their work easier.
Speaking to GBC’s Radio Ghana, a Shea nut picker at Kaleo in the Nadowli-Kaleo District, Dora Pienaa said women in the district could make a lot of money through shea picking if they have a guaranteed price for the produce.
Shea nuts which are sometimes referred to as “northern gold” provide most rural households with income to feed their families.
The shea nuts mature around May with its peak time in June.
According to some shea nut pickers, picking and processing of the nuts is a tedious endeavour without the appropriate tools and equipment.
They often encounter snakes and scorpions because they use their bare hands in picking the shea and therefore appealed to the government to help them with transport as well as simple machinery to process the nuts.
A shea nut aggregator from Kaleo, Oldman Ziema, said the weight of the nuts are key to shea nut aggregators.
He said the price changes depending on the weight and the availability of the nuts when selling shea nuts to processors.
He called on government and financial institutions to make financing readily available to aggregators to help with their work.
