Shea Production: NSSSDP Canvasses Incentives for Women

By Femi Ogbonnikan

The Niger State Shea Sector Development Programme (NSSSDP) has pledged to provide incentives to women in the state to boost the production of the crop. It also pledged to the key elements of the expanded shea production.
Speaking at the Global Shea Alliance Conference in Abuja on Thursday, Prince Ajibola Oluyede, Chairman of the Niger State Shea Sector Development Programme (NSSSDP), explained that the primary producers are stuck in supply chains that keep them impoverished and unable to move along the value chain.

He declared that the women in the Shea belt production, who are the main custodians, caretakers and midwives of the Shea trees, ought to be trained to do business within the Shea sector.
“It is sad to note that from the Global Shea Alliance 2018 Annual report, there has been only a 30% increase in the earnings of these women in the last 11 years. This increase in earnings had been utilised by some of the women to migrate to cultivation of other crops, like cassava.”
Oluyede pointed out that, this scenario gave the impression that there was no room for the women to expand in the Shea value chain, “even with the increased earnings from the drudgery and tedium of dangerous and backbreaking work they had to do to collect the Shea fruits and nuts from parklands unprotected, at the risk of snake bites and upon return to their villages, proceed to manually process and extract Shea butter from a portion of the harvest.”

He added: “I wondered how a $7 billion global Shea sector could deny these women the empowerment and mobility which proper training and support to do business in the Shea value chain would provide. Most of the interventions implemented, from the perspective of the women, were mere tokenism. I warn that the current situation is unsustainable.
“How could the women, in an expanded value chain, which applies a Natural Forest plantation management (NFPM), benefit from the concession of 50,000 hectares to a technically and financially capable Plantation Manager?”

According to the presentation, he said 20 women cooperatives or other women groups would be vested, through 20 subleases, with 500 hectares of parkland each from which, with the technical assistance of the Concessionaire/sublessor and would produce certified High quality organic Shea products for the local and international market.
The NSSSDP chairman stated that women could possibly pay with the produce for the processing of their harvests and enjoy far higher revenues from the sale/export of the final products.

Oluyede congratulated the Global Shea Alliance for its good work in creating a structure that has helped the sector to gain some cohesion and needed exposure and he further seized the occasion to invite the members of the Global Shea Alliance and other Stakeholders to join hands with the NSSSDP in implementing the reforms, which the sector has unanimously agreed was needed, particularly in respect of empowerment of women in the Shea belt in Nigeria through climate smart Agric-business.