The Shea Network Ghana (SNG), a non-governmental organization of sheanut value chain actors, has trained some women shea nut processors and pickers, on best ways of processing the resource to meet quality assurance and international standards for increased incomes.

Mr Iddi Zakaria, National Network Coordinator of SNG, who addressed the participants in Tamale on Tuesday, said the training formed part of a series of trainings that were being carried out across the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions, to improve the quality of shea nut products.

Mr Zakaria complained that some of the shea nuts and butter obtained from those regions sometimes contained particles such as stones and high amount of moisture, which affected their quality level.

He explained that high moisture levels and stones in shea butter made it impure, and thus reduced its value and price, saying, “shea butter must be chemically and physically attractive through good preparations.”

Mr Zakaria said the quality campaign was being carried out in collaboration with Global Shea Alliance and sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),  to improve the income levels of shea collectors through improved processing of sheanuts.

He indicated that the project would reach out to 340 groups in 157 communities, with 10,000 women in the three northern regions through training of trainees, and link them to large buyers to attract premium prices.

He urged buyers to consider the poverty levels of the women in the sheanut business, and avoid cheating them during the buying process through the use of over-sized bags and kilos.

Madam Rakia Nasari, a sheanut picker, expressed worry that sheanut pickers often went for the nuts at dawn and encountered many difficulties, including snake bites, and appealed to government and benevolent organizations to provide them with hand gloves and wellington boots to protect them against danger.