These two posts were written from Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana.

We arrived in Accra, Ghana one week ago via Amsterdam. Sandy, my life partner, Harry, my 18 year old nephew, Bob, a new friend and USDA Organic Inspector, and myself had managed to schedule three nights in this lovely city. There is something to be said about zoning building heights; the 7th story of our hotel had a magnificent view of the rooftops of the city. The city is set out in a roughly circular arrangement, and a healthy person can walk the diameter in three hours or less. We saw the artwork of the Dutch Masters, toured romantic canals (I am told they smell awful in the Summertime), and enjoyed many a lively conversation in the local coffeehouses. If you are planning to visit Amsterdam and need a good, no frills Hotel, I recommend the IBIS chain. There are about 400 throughout Europe, where you can get a smallish room at a reasonable price. We made our reservations online. If you like a good country breakfast, as we do in Vermont, look out! This is British breakfast land. Those hard boiled eggs are cooked just long enough to keep them from hatching....

It was a short hop to Frankfurt, Germany, and then 7 hours due South to Lagos, then less than an hour to Accra, Ghana. It saved a bunch of money to travel this way, but the stops added time and hassle to the task of transporting our bodies across so many miles. We zoomed through Customs. I have learned to project a certain confident "I am here on Official Business" aura going through Customs in West Africa, and they never looked at our bags. Ghanaians are WAY more polite than Americans, and a smile and a greeting, can get you a bit of extra mileage with Security. They are more concerned with collecting the Import Tax from locals with huge bags tagged as personal items, than slowing down visitors bringing American dollars into the nation. The dollar is strong here, and the preferred currency of many business people in West Africa.

Business runs on credit, and here, there is little. Credit cards are close to useless, and we quickly find ourselves guarding our dwindling supply of hard cash. Lack of credit hinders the growth of these developing nations, and banks make more money on bank fees than interest here. Colonialism never fully died, it just became more subtle. In the cities of Ghana, EVERYONE is an entrepreneur, and we quickly become tired of being hustled and overcharged. Visitors pay 3 to 5 times more in taxis, and with small vendors (hawkers). I pretend to become stern with them no matter the opening price, "What? Is too much! Was wrong you?"; and typically save 30 to 40%, still more than the locals or ex-pats pay, but Hey! A Guinness or very large bottle of Club lager is about a buck, and a full restaurant meal is under $10. Smaller, Western style hotels with A/C start at $50 in Accra. We had spied out one of these on our last trip, and were very happy to get out of the grip of the upscale hotel scene. If you are really stuck, the big hotels will take your credit card. We occasionally took lunch at the upscale establishments, and, walking around like we owned the place, were able to use the amenities (read the pool) freely.

All of us attended a 2 day shea butter conference at a very fancy resort. Bob and I had PowerPoint presentations on our respective areas of expertise. His was on Organic Certification to USDA standards. Mine was on what NOT to do when Exporting shea to the US. Experience can be a bitch, but it was turned into a lively interaction and lesson on Western business practices and skills. Other presenters added greatly to my technical knowledge of shea, and the networking was terrific. We then put together a mock up trade show booth to prepare 5 shea producers for Expo West. USAID is helping to sponsor a booth for them, and had put together this conference in part to help them attend the show. Please visit the West Africa Trade Hub booth at Expo and send our regards. These guys really know their shea butter, but the basic issues of shelf life and transport logistics remain. These are intelligent, educated people, though the English is "small small".

My personal goal is to get the bugs (literally and figuratively) out of the shea butter transformation process; to create a medicinal quality shea butter with OG Certification, white color, no odor, and a solid 2 to 3 year shelf life. Having spent the last 13 years working to perfect the handmade soap, castile soap, and castile gel soap processes, my brain is now gnawing at the technical issues surrounding shea butter production. In local terms I am a "Shea Nut". Maybe a hobby would be cheaper.....

Shea has only really been studied for 12 years, and then mostly by my friend and associate Dr. Peter Lovett. We fly North to Tamale with Peter to build experimental solar driers. The idea is to make inexpensive greenhouse driers to kill the fungus that infects the nut, and to heat the nuts in order to denature the lipase enzyme that the nut itself produces inside the kernels. In a small, previous test, solar drying eliminated the autoperoxidation rancification of the oil, which produces the odor and color changes that plagues the natural shea we see in the US. It is our hope that this dryer, along with a speedier, refrigerated transport system, will make artesianal shea a viable commodity in the West.

Shea is the business of women in West Africa, and here, in the lands with 3 months of cool rain and 9 months of heat, life is hard and opportunity slim. We return to Nasia, near Gambaga, where I had purchased last years entire production of 4 drums of the precious butter. One co-op can make up about a drum a day, if they have a grinder, storage buildings, access to open top drums, and a preordered buyer who can arrange transport (ouch!) The devil is in the details, as they say.

To extract the nut there is a roasting process (one of 23 steps in the artesianal process), and that creates free fatty acids, the second cause of rancidity in shea. Theoretically, this can be eliminated by a modern, cold process oil press, modified for shea. This is very exciting to me, and we visit a friend of Peter's who is doing just that. Cold pressing solar dried nuts will produce a medicinal quality shea, high in botanicals, and comparable to hexane refined in terms of shelf life, color and odor. Cold pressed product WOULD be eligible for OG Certification. Cold Pressing with Solar Drying is the process that will produce the OG Cosmetic Grade Shea Butter we all are waiting for

And so, I envision three distinct shea manufacturing routes emerging: Traditional Artesianal, Cold Process Solar Dried, and Hexane Refined. Hexane refining eliminates the need for solar driers (they use the black, fungus nuts, and will remain a cheap mass market source for European chocolates (up to 5% of the formula so yes - you may have already eaten shea butter), and for the "Better Living through Chemistry" L'oreal and Oil of Olay set. Traditional Artesianal allows the value of processing to go directly to the Women's Co-Ops, and is the most Fair Trade and PC route, when shelf life is not always the primary concern. Smaller quantities, sent by air will ensure up to an 18 month shelf life. With careful nut selection and ROE preservative (like the shea that I brought in), it may be longer. Cold Processing their oils, along with Solar Dried shea nuts is the method that I believe is ideal for the Natural and Organic Cosmetics market. Quality at Quantity, as Peter likes to say.

Dawn is coming in a couple of hours, tomorrow is another adventure. I sure hope my stomach settles down.

Peace,
Soapman (and Bona fide Shea Nut),
Larry Plesent

This Post was written Monday, February 28, 2005.

The following post was written the following week:

We are now into our third week in Ghana. Sandy has run around Tamale getting the forms to make the Nasia Women's Cooperative official. They gave her the forms, but then she had to go somewhere else to get them copied. Fees are paid everywhere. Then a long hours drive to meet with the inspector. He claims we must pay for his gas, time, and processing fee, so he will come to meet with the women and explain the requirements (this turns out to be completely false, he is hitting us up for "dash" or motivational money). Africa is pay as you go. There is nothing extra or for free, and this makes it difficult for Westerners, accustomed to getting price, quality and service. However, we get the sense that things are finally coming together here.

Sandy and I meet with the Co-ops new Executive Committee. I tell them; "You are not beggars standing on the corner asking for coins. You are strong and proud women." They cheer and smile. 14 drums of shea have been sent to Accra, and I place an order for another 50. The money to form the co-op, and to build the storage building is a loan against what is owe them for the future 50 drums. Vermont Soap is donating the prototype solar drier, plus enough plastic for 2 more. My drier cost $225 to build (though I am hoping it will last over 10 years), and we make plans to build a $40 drier from local materials, though I will not be there to see it completed.

The group then enters into a long and lively discussion as to the causes of short shelf life. Here is a partial list:

• Harvesting: Often nuts are 2 weeks old before they are picked up off the ground.
• Accumulation: The nuts are piled up to rot off the skins
• Boiling: Boiling stops the peroxides from forming, but seems to encourage the fungus to explode, if the nuts are not properly dried
• Drying: Solar drying guarantees quality, but if it does not rain for a week or so after boiling, perfectly good quality kernels can be dried without it. However, this hardly ever happens.
• Water: The women use water in some clarification processes, and also to roll the shea into balls for selling in the village. ANY water in the shea decreases shelf life dramatically. The minerals in the water have also been associated with degradation of the oil.
• Storage: I found 7 drums of freshly made shea butter melting in the 109F heat. I give a man a few cidis to put a mat on some sticks and cover them. Storage in adobe/cob round houses with straw roofs will help keep them cool.
• Shipping: Some places on the boat are cooler than others. The shea must be cared for every step of the way.

Our understanding of the shea process has increased dramatically this trip, thanks in part to the wealth of knowledge Dr. Peter Lovett has shared with us. Known as "Dr. Shea", Peter is the world's foremost technical expert in shea trees and shea butter.

Organic Certification: OG shea is popping up here and there in the US. Some is OG to Swiss or UK standards. None of it would fit the USDA definition if OG. Here's why: The current Euro definition of a wild crafted plant one that was not planted by people. Shea is not planted, it is Silva cultured. Farmers eliminate the trees they cannot use, and cultivate the ones that are useful. Then they plant their crops between the trees. In Nasia, Maize (but not Guinea Maize interestingly) is hit with ammonia nitrate. One of the 2 bean cycles is sprayed with pesticides. Our hearts sink as we realize the difficulty in obtaining/creating truly OG shea butter from the villages. IF proper records and separation of nuts from different areas can be achieved, no sweat. But again, this is Africa.

A long and dusty trip into the bush reveals that, in the wild, the density of shea trees is not great. And harvesting challenges are many. Clearly, the vast shea parklands are the result of hundreds of years of cultivation by selection. Shea trees may well live to be 500 years old (or possibly several times that), and we all look forward to seeing more research done in this area. Truth is, we are still learning about the shea tree, and the miraculous oil (butter) it produces.

Note: I do have 14 drums ready for shipment to the US, and 50 more that should be made and ready to ship in September. The batch on it's way will have an even better shelf life than the last one (many thanks to those who told me our last batch was the best they ever saw), and the September shipment will incorporate the many new things we taught the group. The idea is that each batch will be even better than the one before. Gradual, relentless improvement.

Many thanks to USAID (your tax dollars at work), for helping to fund some of our expenses through the Farmer to Farmer Program; OIC International, our on the ground support team (especially Eben); and to Tammie Espinosa of "AGardenersResource" www.GreenhouseSupplies.com for giving us a discount on the solar drier plastic. And special thanks to Aubrey Hampton, who asked me to keep an eye out for organic shea butter in West Africa, which started me on this journey.

Making Shea Butter in Ghana and Guinea
West Africa - Issues and Challenges
What to Bring When Traveling in Developing Regions
Essential Oil Distillation Unit Manual
Training Manual for a Village Soap-Making Operation
In-depth Information on Making Potash
Pictoral Description of the Dagomba Method of Shea Extraction (PDF)
Building a Solar Shea Nut Drier in Ghana
Improving the Shelf life of Shea Butter in West Africa