Shea but pickers in the Gushegu Municipality are recording a decline in the quantity of nuts picked annually.
They claimed that, over the last three years, they have missed their annual targets of fifteen bags per picker.
The pickers who are mostly women are concerned that, their livelihood is under threat.
They attributed the drop is yields to rampant bush burning and the cutting down of the Shea nut tree for producing charcoal.
The President of the Yumyataba Shea Nut Processors Association in the Gushegu Municipality, Memunatu Yakubu told GBC in Gushegu, that, though the price of Shea but is rising rapidly, they are not benefiting from the boom as a result of low yields.
“A bag of Shea but is now one hundred and twenty Ghana cedis, sadly when we go to the bush nowadays we do not get enough to pick.
On average, a picker get five bags in a season, but previously, we could pick as much as twenty bags in a year,” she lamented.
The Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University for Development Studies, Professor Seidu Alhassan, who has conducted extensive research on the Shea but industry, recently warned that the livelihood of thousands of women was under threat as a result of a decline in the population of shea nut trees across the Savannah ecological zone.
The Yumyataba Shea Nut Processors Association are adamant that the decline is due to indiscriminate bush burning and cutting down of trees in the area.
The coordinator of the association, Paul Tia revealed that, the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund, has supported them to sensitize residents of the Gushegu Municipality to the impact of indiscriminate bush burning and cutting down of Shea nut tree.
“We are working with the assembly and traditional authorities in the municipality to address the issue.
We’re all suffering from this and we need to work together to reverse the trend, otherwise, five years from now, you will go to the bush and bring home an empty sack,” Mr. Tia stated.
He commended BUSAC Fund for the support and appealed to residents in the area, especially farmers and hunters, to desist from bush burning.
Mr. Atia also appealed to government to introduce alternative source of energy such as gas to the area to reduce over dependence on the Shea but tree for fuel wood.
GBC/Murtala Issah