Processing of environmental products by rural households in developing countries is often considered a
way to lift poor natural resource-dependent households out of poverty by increasing the returns to labour
of their harvesting activities. Still, the bulk of environmental products in developing countries is commercialised
unprocessed. This paper examines the factors enabling and constraining the processing of shea
nuts into shea butter in Burkina Faso. Our analysis is based on socio-economic survey data collected from
536 households in the Zoundwéogo and Cascades provinces of Burkina Faso, as well as qualitative interview
data collected from 74 shea butter producers in the province of Sissili. The factors affecting the
selection of shea butter production as a livelihood activity as well as the economic success of this activity
are analysed using a Heckman selection model. Moreover, we study the effect of locality of residence,
defined as place of residence along the rural–urban continuum, on shea butter processing and income.
We demonstrate that, among members of a shea butter producer Union, women living in urban areas
produce significantly larger quantities of shea butter for sale to the Union and earn superior revenues
from these sales than their rural counterparts. We relate these urban–rural discrepancies to the physical
and socio-economic conditions that characterise life in different localities and propose policy recommendations
based on our findings.