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Household food security, economic empowerment, and the social capital of women’s shea butter production in Mali

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Abstract

Shea butter, an edible oil and lotion produced primarily by women in over twenty-one countries in sub-Saharan Africa and consumed locally and exported internationally, can contribute considerably to achievement of several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This study investigated the importance of shea butter to women and their families for food security, household economy, women’s empowerment, and social capital. It highlights the vital social value of shea butter in cooperative labor for production, gifting customs among women, and traditional and religious ceremonies. In addition, this study identifies critical opportunities for and obstacles to further market expansion. Based on a mixed methods approach employed in Mali from 2009 to 2014, this study included participant observation, interviews, surveys, and focus group discussions as well as shea tree mapping and weighing of shea and firewood. Major challenges that exist for shea market expansion and food security potential include climate change and globalization of other competing world edible oils. Nevertheless, there are promising opportunities for the shea market with the extensive shea tree distribution, growth of consumer support for environmentally and socially conscious products, and capacity building efforts of rural shea nut collectors and butter producers by the Global Shea Alliance.

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Notes

  1. The pseudonym Shidugu is used for the research site to protect the anonymity of research participants in Mali. This term means “shea village” in Bambara.

  2. All research methods were approved by the University of South Florida’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).

  3. Statistics cited from the Demographic Household Survey are for Malians aged 15–49 (CPS et al. 2014).

  4. Bambara comprises the major ethnic group in Mali (34%) (CPS et al. 2014) and Bambara (Bamanankan) language is spoken by 80% of the Malian population (Lewis et al. 2016).

  5. Naughton served in the U.S. Peace Corps as part of her graduate degree in the Peace Corps Master’s International program (Mihelcic et al. 2006).

  6. The number of focus groups and participants in them may be considered a small sample size but still adds further depth to the study and is representative of the different age groups.

  7. Although males were not included in the focus groups or directly interviewed or surveyed, they were often present during the surveys and participant observation of some of the shea activities. They also provided useful information and historical context for this research.

  8. IBM SPSS version 21 software was used for analysis of all shea fruit collection data.

  9. As recorded during the five years of data collection (2009–2014), the USD to CFA conversion rate ranged between 490 and 593 CFA for 1 USD and thus a standard 1 USD = 500 CFA was used throughout this article.

  10. In Shidugu almost all married women participate in one or more of five different women’s groups (25–53 members) where they contribute 50–100 CFA (0.10–0.20 USD) per week to a group fund (Naughton 2016). Women can take out loans throughout the year usually between 500 CFA and 25,000 CFA (1.00–50.00 USD) and must pay back the loan within a one to six month period agreed upon by the organization members with 10% interest. Usually at the beginning of the rainy season (May/June), the women’s organizations will divide all the money equally among members resulting in an 11,000–25,000 CFA (22.00–50.00 USD) loan that must be paid back within six months, which coincides with the period after harvest when women sell their cash crops (e.g. peanuts and beans).

  11. Collective or reciprocal labor groups, in which small groups organize to help each other complete manual labor for each other or for profit that they divide amongst themselves, are common throughout rural areas in developing countries particularly Latin America and Africa (Vasco 2014).

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1243510 and the U.S. Department of Education GAANN P200A090162. From 2014 to 2015, the first author held an American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

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The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Colleen C. Naughton.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest.

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Naughton, C.C., Deubel, T.F. & Mihelcic, J.R. Household food security, economic empowerment, and the social capital of women’s shea butter production in Mali. Food Sec. 9, 773–784 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-017-0706-y

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