An analysis of factors affecting Womens' capacities as traditional Shea butter processors in northern Ghana

The shea tree is an indigenous and exclusive asset in West and Central Africa and particularly abundant in the Northern Savannah areas of Ghana where shea butter constitutes a key source of income for local women. The objectives of this research were to describe the capacity level of women as traditional shea butter processors and to analyze factors which affected women’s capacity in processing shea butter as a traditional home industry. Participant observation, interview and semi-structured questionnaire were used to collect data from 204 households engaged in shea butter processing in Sawla-Tuna-Kalba and Wa West districts, selected via simple random sampling procedure. Spearman correlation and descriptive statistics were used in the data analysis. The results revealed that the social economic characteristics of traditional shea butter processors (namely; age, length of time in business, informal education, motivation, family size, and individual beliefs about the social and cultural values of shea butter) and support from agriculture extension affected personal capacity. Personal capacity affected business capacity and in the next term, business capacity affected productivity. Increasing productivity will increase income. This means that the shea butter processors with higher personal capacity will do better in business. This study concludes that the processing of shea butter in Northern Ghana is still dominated by traditional business, both the production process and management and that the processing of shea butter into more innovative and economic products is still progressing slowly. The development of shea butter in Northern Ghana, especially shea butter processing has to consider and understand factors that affect personal and business capacity of traditional shea butter processors.