About
ProKarité
Improving Product Quality and Market Access for Shea Butter Originating
from Sub-Saharan Africa (CFC/FIGOOF/23), Projet d'Appui Technique à la
Filière Karité (ProKarité ) was initiated
by the Common Fund for Commodities, an inter-governmental financial
institution in the framework of the United Nations, as a means
of enhancing the socio-economic development and living standards
of the primary producers of shea kernel and shea butter across
Africa.
With additional support from the Netherlands Government and technical
backstopping from the Inter-Governmental Group on Oilseeds, Oils
and Fats of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO), the ProKarité project is currently being implemented
by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).
From the pilot project area of Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and
Niger, ProKarité provides a platform from which ICRAF engages
the participation and collaboration of institutions and individuals
across the African shea zone, including 16 countries from Senegal
to Ethiopia and Uganda.
A primary objective of the ProKarité project is to establish
regional and international standards of shea product quality, with
reference both to shea kernel and shea butter, as a basis for enhanced ‘traceability’ along
the supply chain.
In this regard, the project has established a dialogue with the
most significant industrial buyers of shea kernel, and is working
to consolidate technical partnerships of mutual interest to industry
and the producers, in order to develop and elaborate common parameters,
grades and standards of product quality for shea kernel and shea
butter in close consultation between regional stakeholder institutions
and international industry.
Though each stakeholder of the shea sector (or filière)
carries a unique and divergent interest, ProKarité builds
upon confluence of these interests, building more effective linkages
between the producers, consumers, and all commercial and industrial
intermediaries. Project activities focus on common issues such
as the consistency and reliability of product quality, and documentation
of the specific attributes of nuts and butter from different origins
or provenances.
Building on simple methods of quality control at the producer
level, the project works to increase the efficiency of production
of optimal-quality shea products, thus increasing profitability
of production for the benefit of the primary producers, rural processors,
and the shea sector as a whole.
Based on applied research on post-harvest processing methods which
determine product quality, the project has developed training curricula
to enhance added product value through increased product quality,
improved processing techniques, the use and maintenance of improved
processing equipment, and 'best practices' of shea butter production
from harvest through packaging.
Training programs implemented in partnership with national institutions
and community-based organizations reinforce the productive and
professional capacity, technical and management skills of rural
producers and rural producer marketing associations.
Project Results
In October 2004, the CFC-ProKarité project brought together
over 100 participants drawn from each of the 16 shea-producing
countries across Africa for a Regional Consultative Workshop in
order to identify common issues, concerns and technical constraints
in order to build a regional consensus on key technical issues
of shea product quality, and to construct an institutional basis
upon which a regional product certification system may be established.
The workshop provided a framework through which the concerns and
requirements of the industrial end-users of shea products may be
internalized, and effective and concerted action taken at the regional
level for the benefit of the shea producing countries, and the
shea sector as a whole.
During 2005, the the CFC-ProKarité project consolidated
and strengthened its engagement with rural producers, the private
sector, international industry and end-use consumers. To serve
the primary producers and rural processors of shea kernel and shea
butter across the African shea zone, the project is working to
establish a regional network of practitioners, from producers and
producer groups to support organizations.
Through the Shea Network or Réseau Karité (online
at www.thesheanetwork.net), technical and market information (including
price and supply information by volume and quality) will be monitored
on local and national markets through partner institutions will
be collected, analysed and disseminated, in collaboration between
producer groups, marketing associations, support organizations,
government agencies, traders and other stakeholders of the private
sector.
From 2005-2007, a series of regional technical support and exchange
visits have been organized in response to narrowly-defined and
specific technical requirements of project stakeholders, to support
project objectives including product quality control, product development,
establishment of product certification standards, marketing and
other technical and management issues.
In order to add value to the shea resource, the project will document
and publicise new (and potential) cutting-edge product innovations
and market applications based on the nutritional and therapeutic
attributes of shea butter, including scientific data drawn from
the results of clinical trials.
Through the Vitellaria Database, the CFC-ProKarité project
has assembled existing data on characterization of shea provenances
based on based on oil chemistry parameters (including the chemical
characteristics or ‘signatures’ of shea products of
particular geographic origins), and is working to supplement this
data, which may add value for specific end-use applications. The
Vitellaria Database, a work in progress, is freely accessible at ‘www.prokarite.org/vitellaria-dbase’.
For more information on the ProKarité project, please contact:
Eliot Masters, ProKarité Project Coordinator
c/o ICRAF-Sahel
B.P. 320 Bamako, Mali
Tel. No. +223 606 0503
Fax No. +223 222 8683
Email: e.masters@cgiar.org
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