Drivers of value addition and product upgrading to shea nuts by collectors in northern Uganda

Abstract

This study assessed the factors associated with value addition and product upgrading of shea nut in northern Uganda. We adopted a cross-sectional research design using a multi-stage sampling approach and a structured interviewer-administered questionnaire to collect data from 252 respondents. The results show that 84% of shea nut collectors practise some level of value addition with 11.5% adding value to all of the shea nuts collected. Over 50% of the shea nut collectors had at least one value-added product with about 3% having four value-added products, the most common products being roasted kernel and crude butter (37.3%). Regression analysis revealed that level of value addition was significantly influenced by gender, age, land under shea cultivation, income, information access, association membership and spot marketing, while the number of value-added products was significantly influenced by age, household size, extension access, information access, association membership, informal marketing, formal marketing and location of shea collector. The findings imply that increasing shea value addition in terms of both proportions allocated to value addition and the number of value-added products require adopting a group approach to provision of value addition and shea processing information. Therefore, we recommend the need to encourage shea actors to form associations focused on value addition.

Keywords:

• shea nut
• collectors
• product
• upgrading
• Uganda

Acknowledgement

This work was funded through the ECOLAN Post-Doctoral Research Grant (RU/2018/Post Doc RTP /01) by Dr Anthony Egeru funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York through the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM). We appreciate the shea actors who voluntarily accepted to participate in this study, and the data collection team, who, did a great job in interviewing the shea collectors. We also thank the anonymous reviewers who gave valuable comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 1US$ = UGX 3,650 at the time of the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by RUFORUM: [Grant Number RU/2018/Post Doc RTP /01].