Struggles over Access to Shea Trees in Burkina Faso and Ghana

Shea nuts constitute an important ingredient in the food and cosmetics industry and have seen a 600% increase in export volumes following the post-2000 boom in demand for shea oil as a Cocoa Butter Equivalent (CBE) ingredient. In this paper, we show how changes in the shea market have affected access to shea trees for most nut collectors. Quantitative data were collected through a survey with 1,046 randomly selected collectors in 24 communities in Burkina Faso and Ghana. This data was combined with qualitative data generated with 18 collectors. Results show that 85.6% of collectors surveyed reported an increase in the number of shea nut collectors in their community over the past 10 years, resulting in nuts being harder to find. Poorer collectors are increasingly being excluded from private fields and find themselves confined to collecting nuts in (shrinking) commonly owned areas, experiencing no increase in their income.