Market Access through Cooperative Action: Insights from Shea Cooperatives in the Tamale Metropolis, Ghana

Aims: The aim of this study is to investigate how cooperative activity in the shea business affects market access. Access to shea business market is fundamental for the success of shea production. Yet shea nuts pickers are not always able to provide the shea nuts because of the seasonal nature making ready market a challenge. Place of Study: This study was conducted to assess market access through cooperative action: Insights from shea cooperatives in the Tamale metropolis. Methodology: A cross-sectional study design was used in this study among study participants in the Tamale metropolis. Simple random sampling technique was applied to obtain a sample size of 384. The collected data was filled on cleared for completeness and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science version (SPSS) 21.0 and Microsoft word excels 2013. Results: From the results, 384 (100%) study participants indicated that cooperative assisted them to get access to market information about shea production. The results showed that, 84% study participants cited that being a member of the cooperative helped them to get ready market for shea nut/butter products. The results also showed that, the category of study participants and age were significantly associated with knowledge of factors that undermine the shea cooperatives from accessing markets (χ2=45.7, p=0.001; χ2=49.7, p=0.002) respectively. However, variables such as education and marital status respectively (χ2=10.3, p=0.10; χ2=10.5, p=0.14) were not statistically significant and had no association Conclusion: The study concluded that, cooperatives had a positive effect on women access to shea market at the study setting. Among other things, the study recommends that, cooperative governance structures should be strengthened to enhance coordination, bulk marketing, and collective bargaining power for better market access.