Abstract

Millet accounts for 80-100% of the caloric intake from cereals for the rural population of Mali. Inefficient processing and traditional primitive techniques of hand threshing are the cause of excessive postharvest grain losses. The project will develop a manually operated low-cost millet thresher, suitable for local manufacture, that can be purchased and used by a large family or a small village and that will be based on the threshing principles of an existing tractor-driven millet thresher and on available energy sources.

Post-Project Summary

Not all project objectives were met. Engineers and technicians of the "Division du Machinisme Agricole" did manufacture four prototypes of a manually operated threshing machine that could thresh sorghum, with an effective production of 45 to 115 kg per hour, depending on the degree of effort of the operator. However, the threshing machine did not work well with millet, which was the target crop of the project. Furthermore, since no field activities were carried out, it was impossible to assess the usefulness of the threshing machine in rural areas and to decide on possible production of the machine at a reasonable cost.

Recipient Institution(s)