The ‘hunt’ for shea nuts

The collection and sale of sheanuts have supported rural women over the years to generate extra income to supplement family income for the household nutritional requirement and other expenses. There have been efforts made by governmental and non-governmental organizations to enable women to explore the potential of the sheanuts in West Africa empowering them to have a better standard of living. However there have been concerns on the increasing competition over resources - land and shea trees - affecting women in the shea business which have even been complicated with the global climate change crises. The study uses the lens of gender power relations to analyse collection and sale of sheanuts, the socioeconomic dynamics in the access to land and control of sheanut production in order to critically assess the efforts of developmental organizations in empowering women in Nakong through sheanut production for economic gains. The findings show how gender power relations play out in sheanut production where productive and reproductive activities in the household and community directly or indirectly influence shea nut production. The study looks at the gendered socioeconomic factors such as marital status, age, childbearing, kinship and the family wealth influences the access to land and shea trees which are the fundamental resources for shea nut production.