ABSTRACT
Returning to the butter-making communities examined in Chapter 1, this chapter probes the changing social and material conditions of butter production resulting from the restructuring of the export market for shea nuts. While the export of Ghanaian shea butter remained negligible as privatization took hold, butter-makers in northern Ghana still bore the burdens of export promotion because of the new conditions of nut trade it inspired. Despite nut traders’ efforts to protect domestic nut supplies from the incursions of exporters, women engaged in commercial butter processing competed with private buyers and state officials. Shea nuts-previously available in abundance and on casual terms of credit-became expensive and scarce. These new terms of trade dramatically heightened the capital requirements of indigenous butter production, with profound effects on the organization of butter processing and the prospects and parameters of income generation for savanna women.
