VANESSA VICK PHOTOGRAPHY

Shea Oil

The shea tree is indigenous to the Nile region of Africa. Inside the nutritious fruit is a large hard seed, which yields shea butter. This is used as food-oil, a cosmetic and as a sacred substance of great importance to the people who live in northern Uganda. The tree is particularly important to women farmers who process the nut and use the income from the tree to sustain their families, and to improve their lives.

Women farmers in Lira have formed a cooperative to harvest, process and sell shea oil.
  
The average annual household income in northern Uganda is less than $200; the shea tree provides a vital source of income for the family.
   
By reinforcing the economic value of the shea butter tree through expanded markets, participating farmers have become serious about protection of shea woodland.
     
  
Protection of young shea trees is critical, as the tree does not start bearing fruit for 15 to 20 years.
   
Women's income from shea products pays for children's school fees, clothing, food and medicine for the family.
  
The shea tree is known as ‘moo-yahoo tree’ in the local language.
     
  
The shea tree is a slow-growing hardwood indigenous to northern Uganda and Southern Sudan and can live as long as 300 years.
   
In order to conserve the shea tree as a local natural resource, harvesting shea butter must 'compete' with the short-term cash value of the tree as a sack or two of charcoal.
   
For hundreds of years a traditional grinding stone has been used to extract the oil from the shea nuts.
     
  
In times of drought and famine, the shea tree typically provides an important nutritional buffer.
   
In northern Uganda where poverty levels are high shea oil provides cash for the household while the oil itself nourishes the family.