The 'Cocoa' of the North

The shea tree in the north is regarded as the sword that empowers women against the wrecks of poverty. Sadly however, less than 30 percent of the yields from the shea is collected due to the fact that it grows on the wild. As GRi learned on a tour of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana sub-station in Bole in the Northern Region, every effort is being put into domesticating the shea tree. Rev. Fr. Dr. Emmanuel O.K. Oddoye, Senior Research Officer at the Institute talks to CLEMENT TUONURU

Shea butter is assuming amazing importance in the international beauty and cosmetic industry as the most sought after ingredient in aiding the moisture content of pomade. Its organic nature makes it the preferred choice of environmentally-conscious users.
In Britain and other European nations, for instance, manufacturers and retailers of pomade and other cosmetics, advertise the addition of shea butter in their products with pride.

In the savanna zones of the West African Sub-Region, it provides the main raw materials for women industry. As an official suggested, the shea nut tree is the ‘cocoa’ of the north. For some time in the immediate post independent era, shea butter was the main pomade in most Ghanaian homes.

The shea nut tree (known scientifically as Vitellaria paradoxa), grows wild in the Guinea Savannah zone of West Africa where the climate is characterised by unimodal rainfall pattern starting in April and ends in October. Total annual rainfall ranges from 900mm to 1,200mm and the average maximum temperature is about 34.5 degrees centigrade. These climatic conditions are conducive for the growth of the shea tree. The tree is normally not found in areas that are prone to water-logging or with poorly drained heavy soils.

In Ghana, the shea tree is, found mainly in the three northern regions. But it is also in the northern fringes of the Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Eastern and Volta Regions. The tree is slow growing. According to CRIG officials, it takes about 12 to 15 years to bear fruit. The fruits (nuts) are processed mostly by women for fat, the commercial product.

By tradition, no individual can own a shea nut tree. It is considered an ill-omen for someone to claim ownership of a plot of shea nut trees. It is forbidden to cut or cause damage to shea butter tree. The tree belongs to all. It is perceived to be the lifeline of the people.

The shea tree is propagated by seed and recent research at the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) has shown that vegetative propagation is possible.

In 1974, CRIG set up a sub-station in Bole to aid research into all aspects of the shea tree; ranging from growth either by seed or by vegetative propagation, the agronomic practices that are needed to ensure optimum growth and yield to the harvesting and processing of the crop.

The centre later took on board research into cashew when cashew as the crop began to excite attention in the country.

The prime concern of the centre is finding ways of domesticating the shea tree and reducing its gestation period so that it could become a crop of economic importance, attracting a chunk of people to it.

Apart from the centre concerning itself with the physiology, breeding and the agronomy of these economic crops (cashew and shea nut), GRi also learned during visit to the centre that the sub station is developing some by-products from both shea butter nut and cashew.

For instance, cashew yields a lot of products. Apart from the nuts, the fruits when squeezed give juice which is used in producing fruit juice drink and jam. The remains are used as animal feeds. Some oil could also be obtained from the cashew nuts. There butter from shea nuts.

Asked why the centre is cited at Bole and no other place in the north, the Senior Research Officer, chuckled and said that when the authorities decided to extend their tentacles to the north, God revealed no other place but Bole. “Behold,” he said Biblically, “the traditional ruler, Bolewura Amankwah Gbedease II, was much more than friendly to the extent of allocating a vast land of several acres for the institute.”

Bole is a district capital with a population not exceeding 10,000 people.

Dr. Oddoye told GRi that the current size of the plantation is about 700 acres of a mixture of shea and cashew. There is much more to be done, according to the Senior Research fellow: The total land mass under cultivation is not even up to one third of the total land mass allotted to the institute.

Dr. Oddoye said the problem with shea butter tree is that it takes too long to bear fruit. The challenge is how to get it to grow quicker and to yield within the shortest possible time. Being wild and ubiquitous, it has adapted naturally to certain conditions that make the efforts of taming it very difficult.

The main interest in the sub-station in Bole, according to Dr. Oddoye, is to develop the shea tree to stand out as the most perceptible crop whose economic value is felt in almost every household in the north. For this reason, the idea emerged that the crop should be modified so that it could generate maximum yields to beef up the income level of women, especially, who are the main patrons of the crop.

The economic value of the shea nut crop is reflected in the fact that all parts of the shea tree, ranging from the roots to the fruits have some practical use. The bark is an ingredient in traditional medicine against certain childhood ailments and minor scrapes and cuts. The shell of the nuts can repel mosquitoes. Above all, the fruity part of the nut, when crushed and processed, yields the butter.

The benefits of a domesticated shea nut tree, far outweigh that of the wild. Being wild means that the trees grow naturally and haphazardly as compared to a plantation where they are grown orderly with good agronomic practices. It also implies that the collectors would have to travel far into the bush in order to pick the nuts. In such a circumstances, only 10 to 20 per cent of the nuts are collected.

Those picking are also exposed to other dangers like snake bites and attack by other wild animals. The burden of carrying heavy loads of shea nuts for such long distances is onerous. Compared to a domesticated shea nut plantation, which is regularly weeded and researched into, one can be assured of optimum yield and increase use of the land.

. The traditional way of producing shea butter is often interferes with quality. The sub station has plans to set up a plant to mechanise the process such that the women, who are the main processors would be taught how to produce export quality butter. The institute will then buy the butter from women pickers for processing. A laboratory will also be established to test the butter that is being produced to ensure that it is of the desired quality butter before it is exported.

Shea butter is a natural herbal extract. It is known for its effective skin care. It is reputable for its:
High moisturising properties which protect the skin from dryness and sunburn;
Treatment of chapped lips and feet, skin abrasions and blemishes; high nutritive qualities including vitamins A,D,E,F; wonderful pharmaceutical properties;
Versatility in home use in food and direct skin application;
Use in the cosmetics industry to make premium creams, lotions, bath soaps and skin care products;
Use in the manufacture of margarine and especially in the manufacture of chocolates and confectionery as it is an excellent for cocoa butter;

Making traditional shea butter is labour intensive. Women toil for long hours in the wild in harsh weather, braving rainstorms and temperatures to pick shea nuts. The traditional shea butter is extracted from shea nuts and typically involves the following stages:

The shea fruits are collected and heaped for some few days for the fruits to decompose
The fruits are de-pulped to get the nuts;
The nuts are parboiled for at least 60 minutes;
They are then dried on a plain floor for some time to remove moisture;
The nuts are de-husked or de-shelled to get the kernel;
The kernel is further dried and after this stage, the kernel could be stored for use at a future date or sold in this form;
After getting the dried kernel, any desirable quantity is fetched onto a specially; designed mortar and pounded with a pestle until it turns flour;
The flour is fried on a pan until it turns liquid;
It is then sent to the grinding mill for grinding or this could be done locally on a specially designed stone into a paste;
From the paste, some water is added and kneaded vigorously by hands until oil in coagulated form separate from the water;
Released oil in coagulated form is whisked out. Water containing nut sediments is discarded;
Coagulated shea butter containing traces of nut paste is placed to steam kettles or boiling pods;
Coagulated shea butter paste is heated in kettles at high heat to release shea oil;
Shea oil is skimmed and stored to solidify into shea butter.

The institute has set up a plant that processes cashew. Out of a total of 28 employees in this plant, only one is a male, the rest are females. The gender bias in the recruitment is deliberate because the nature of the job is such that it requires more women than men. The cashew nuts are processed to get the fruit which is subsequently packaged in small plastic bags.

The Bole sub-station boasts of the only cultivated shea plantation in Ghana. The seed takes about 7 to 10 years to start fruiting.

The institute also did a germ plasm collection, the idea of collecting different varieties to arrive at a high yielding variety. According to officials at the sub-station, shea nut varieties from all over the north were collected for an experiment. The product of the cross breeding is what informed the cultivation of the shea nut plantation.

The main hurdle of the institute is how to reduce the gestation period of the plant – the period between planting and harvesting. The institute is relying on vegetative propagation. This form of propagation is believed to be faster.

Another method of propagation at the experimental stage is by grafting and budding. This has been successfully tried on cashew and there is every belief that it will work on shea too.

The institute is awaiting verification trials on some agronomic practices including:

Cashew intercrop trial – The essence of this trial is to see if it is possible to intercrop cashew with other food crops such as maize, groundnut and yam which could be of use to the farmer.
Cashew fertilizer application trial – This is also to verify if the application of fertilizer to cashew has any impact on the yield. In this case, separate plots of cashew are sited, one of which is applied fertilizer and the other not. The yields from the different plots are then compared to see the impact of the fertilizer on cashew yields.
Cashew spacing trial – This seeks to establish the appropriate distance that should be allowed between the cashew trees.
Weed control trial – There has been some innovations for weed control. Some plants such as the Agushie have been introduced to suppress the growth of weeds. Some cashew farms have also been allowed to be bushy to test the tolerance level of cashew to weeds. If this is found to be applicable, it will relieve farmers of the onerous task of regular weed control. In addition to crops, the institute has about 150 cattle which graze on the plantation in order to reduce under growth and their droppings can also add nutrients to the soil.

These trials have been applied on the shea plantation as well. There is the other method of intercropping shea nut with cashew.
The sub station, is still at the experimental stage but officials have quite a lot to cheer about. The success story so far includes:
The ability to get the stem of the shea nut tree to geminate after it has been cut from the plant.
It has also been able to perfect a technique for grafting cashew which is being used in top-working. In top-working, when it is realised for instance that the original cashew plant is not of the high yielding variety, it is cut down. When it begins to re-grow, it is grafted or the high yielding variety is budded into the re-grown plant.
The institute is also able to extract juice from the cashew nut and is used for jam, fresh fruit drinks, alcohol and animal feed from the residue after the extraction of the juice.

Challenges
The greatest challenge facing the institute is the limited availability of funds for research. According to officials at the sub station, cashew for instance has done very well because there is a Cashew Development Project being run by the Ministry of Agriculture and funded by the African Development Bank. Consequently, cashew research is has suddenly jumped into the lead because it is getting a lot of support. The shea nut experiment, they say also needs similar support.

The climatic conditions are suitable for both the shea and the cashew because both crops require dry conditions. However, the prevalence of bush fires is the greatest problem. The annual fire outbreaks that sweep through shea trees often retard regular growth. Normally, the bush fire burns the back of the shea tree making it to shed its leaves completely thereby retarding its growth. Against this backdrop, the institute has employed people as fire patrols/guards to watch out for bush fires.

Unlike cashew, which takes three years to start fruiting, shea nut takes between seven and 10 years and as a result, there is a problem of how to whip up the enthusiasm of people to take to shea nut farming.

The price is the same for a bag of cashew and shea nuts. However, the weights differ. An 80 kilogrammes bag of cashew sells at GH¢ 24 whilst the same price applies to a bag of shea nut weighing 85 kilogrammes. These prices are however seasonal. Unlike cashews and shea nuts, cocoa is a commodity whose price is quoted in the world market. Cashew and shea nuts are yet to get to this stage.COCOBOD is trying to fix prices for the shea nut trade just as cocoa so that shea nut prices will no longer be seasonal.

There are 44 permanent staff. The institute also employs about 50 casual workers every month to work on the plantations, most of whom are recruited within the community.
Dr Oddoye ended his chat to GRI by pledging the research institute’s commitment to operate in the best interest of the people that it serves.

The goal, he stressed is to help farmers in the north to establish shea plantations so that they can get more from the shea tree. In that case, the shea tree will truly become the ‘cocoa’ of the north, providing income and livelihood for people; thus minimising the pangs of poverty.