GCX Advocates Structured Domestic Shea Market to Boost Local Value Retention

The Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX) is advocating a fundamental transformation of the way shea is traded domestically.

It said a structured and transparent market is critical to ensuring that the growing global value of the commodity benefits the communities that sustain the industry.

Chief Executive Officer of GCX, Evelyn Abakah, said the country is at a critical juncture in the development of its shea industry, with significant opportunities to increase local value retention through improved market infrastructure.

Speaking at the World Shea Expo 2026 in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital, held under the theme ‘From local commodity to global brand: Accelerating women and youth-led value addition in shea’, Ms Abakah said Ghana could capture a significantly larger share of the global shea value chain if the sector was supported by a stronger market structure.

“Ghana can capture a much larger share, but only with a market structure strong enough to support that ambition. That is exactly the gap the Ghana Commodity Exchange was built to close,” she said.

According to Ms. Abakah, about two-thirds of Ghana’s shea is exported in unprocessed form, limiting the country’s ability to capture higher-value opportunities in areas such as cosmetics, food processing and other finished products.

GCX seeks mandate

Against this backdrop, GCX is seeking a partial government mandate for domestic shea trading to be conducted through the Exchange, a move it says would strengthen price discovery, transparency and confidence across the value chain.

Ms. Abakah stressed that the proposal is not intended to disrupt the existing shea industry, but to provide the market infrastructure required to support its expansion and greater value addition.

“This is not to change what shea is, who grows it, or who has worked in this industry for generations. It is simply to give shea the market infrastructure an industry of this importance deserves,” she said.

She explained that a structured domestic market would give farmers, pickers, aggregators and processors greater visibility on prevailing prices while providing a more reliable foundation for investment and value addition.

Building trust in commodity markets

Ms. Abakah pointed to GCX’s experience in bringing greater order, transparency and trust to commodity trading as evidence of the potential benefits of a structured shea market.

Over the past five years, the Exchange has facilitated the trading of approximately 80,000 metric tonnes of commodities, including maize, rice, soybean and cashew, with a combined value exceeding GH¢400 million.

The Exchange has also worked with financial institutions to enable more than 500 farmers to access financing using stored commodities as collateral, with Ms Abakah saying no loan defaults had been recorded under the arrangement.

“When a commodity has verified quality, a known location and a transparent price, it stops being just a crop; it becomes an asset,” she stated.

Standards for shea trading

GCX, in collaboration with development partners including USAID and UNDP, has also been working on quality parameters and grading standards for shea, she disclosed.

She said the proposed standards had been validated through stakeholder engagement in Tamale in 2024, laying the groundwork for a more structured market based on consistent quality and grading.

According to the CEO, such a system could improve price discovery and income opportunities across the shea value chain, particularly for women who dominate shea collection and processing at the community level.

Women must capture more value

Ms. Abakah said women must remain at the centre of efforts to transform the industry, given their longstanding contribution to shea collection and processing.

She called for a value chain in which women and communities at the beginning of the production process receive a greater share of the economic value generated by the commodity.

“The women who have carried this industry for generations deserve a market that works as hard for them as they have worked for it,” she said.

GCX believes a structured shea market could help Ghana move beyond the export of raw commodities towards greater domestic processing, value addition and participation in global markets.

The exchange is consequently positioning itself as market infrastructure capable of connecting producers with buyers, improving price discovery, facilitating access to finance and creating stronger opportunities for value addition.

Source: thebftonline.com