Northern Region Experiences Poor Sheanut Harvest

The Northern Region, that leads in sheanut production, has experienced its worse harvesting season this year.

The poor harvest is attributed to the annual bushfires that threaten the flowering of the crop.

The commodity is therefore, scarce on the market and prices and demand are high when the purchasing season opened in July.

Alhaji Yahaya Zagua, chairman of the Northern Regional Interim Management Committee (NRIMC) of the Ghana Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers Association said this at a meeting of the Association in Tamale on Saturday.

He said a maxi bag of the crop sells at 76,000 cedis in Tamale and 60,000 cedis in the villages.

It sold at 40,000 cedis and 30,000 cedis last year during the same period.

The shea tree is a wild crop, scattered in the bush in the three Northern Regions and is prone to the annual bushfires that threaten its existence.

Alhaji Zagua said the shea tree has a life span of more than 300 years because it is deeply rooted.

Sheabutter is extracted from its nuts and the waste matter used for the manufacture of local soap.

The Interim Chairman asked members of the Association to educate the people about the economic values of the crop.

He urged men to assist the women in the picking of the commodity to increase production because of its worldwide demand.

Alhaji Zagua appealed to farmers in the region to establish sheanut plantations to earn more income and foreign exchange for the country.

He said farmers in the Nanumba, Bole, Savelegu/Nanton, Gusheigu/Karaga Districts and the Tamale Municipality have started cultivating the crop on a large-scale, using an improved nut from Mali.

The improved nut, he said, takes between eight and nine years to mature as against 15 years for the indigenous shea tree.

Alhaji Zagua appealed to the District Assemblies in the region to assist the Association with funds to purchase and market the commodity.He asked the Assemblies to compel private companies buying sheanuts in the region to pay levies to them.

Mr. Sylvester Adongo, Acting Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, who chaired the meeting, said sheanut is a future foreign earning crop for the country.

He explained that while cocoa price dwindles, that of the sheanut increases and urged the people to step-up their picking from 25 per cent to 50 per cent next year.

In an open forum, the NRIMC announced that it is working towards acquiring land for large-scale sheanut cultivation in the area.