2024-01-01 23:00:43
While prices are soaring in other major producing countries, shea is currently losing its commercial attraction in Nigeria, the world’s leading producer country even though it exploits less than 40% of its potential. Unlike its West African neighbors, Nigeria exports a small proportion of its production. Only artisanal players are present in this market, which is overwhelmingly female, and demand is not strong enough to support prices. A situation which might discourage players in the sector for the next campaign next year and have an impact on the processing industry, mainly located in the south-west of the country.
From our special correspondent returning from Kaiama,
Rasheeda is unable to leave her village of Kaiama, Kwara State. For ten years, this thirty-year-old has been producing shea butter in a collective space. Rasheeda works for herself. Here, she can cook and then pound her shea almonds.
« If you have some shea kernels now, you can successfully produce shea butter and if you are patient, it can earn you a lot of money. If you produce with two buckets of shea kernels, when prices are good, you can make a profit to buy four more buckets of shea kernels. »
The current selling price of shea kernels is not satisfactory for Rasheeda, because it is equivalent to 0.18 euros per kilo in her village, and only one cent more on the Kaiama market. Rasheeda therefore prefers to transform a very small part of her stock into shea butter, waiting for the price of almonds to rise.
Among Rasheeda’s clients, Akabi Iyabo is an independent trader: “ For now, one bag is worth the equivalent of 95 euros. It contains shea butter added directly at the end of its preparation. I will buy, say, up to 50 to 60 bags. You know, before the devaluation of the naira, it was really interesting to buy 50 bags. Now the prices have increased for us ».
A profit of around 15,000 euros per year
The sale of shea butter, for Rasheeda, is new money to invest in cereals that she buys here in Kaiama. By speculating on the price of these cereals, Rasheeda can buy shea kernels in neighboring villages that are isolated because they have no access roads, then resell these almonds when the price is high, particularly to representatives of large industrial companies.
« I will buy cereals like millet and corn with the profits from my shea butter sales and store them. If the shea nut matures, then I will buy new nuts, start processing it and store some of them. This is how I do my business. »
And for all these transactions, Rasheeda never borrows from the few microfinance establishments present in Kaiama. Half-heartedly, she admits that her profits exceed the equivalent of 15,000 euros on average each year. A nice sum compared to the 1,934 euros of annual gross income per capita in Nigeria, according to the World Bank in 2022.
Read alsoShea: a campaign driven by the rise in cocoa prices
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