View source for Millet-grain-thresher

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    <div class="title"><h3>8.12 - Millet grain thresher</h3><br><h3 class="ch-owner">Zena Samake, University of Guelph, Canada
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        <p><b>Related video(s)</b>: Community millet thresher (English subtitles)(Source: Access Agriculture, SAK Global)</p>
        <p><i> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KScSdE5xnf8</i></p>

        <p>Suggested citation for this chapter.</p>
        <p>Samake,Z(2022) Millet grain thresher. In Farmpedia, The Encyclopedia for Small Scale Farmers. Editor, M.N. Raizada, University of Guelph, Canada. http://www.farmpedia.org</p>
        <h3 class="title-bg">Background</h3>
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            <p>Millets are small grain cereal crops and include finger millet which is an annual cereal high in calcium, zinc, iron, dietary fibre, phytates and protein. The crop is widely cultivated in Africa and South Asia.  Other millets include pearl millet, proso millet, foxtail millet, barnyard millet, kodo millet and little millet (Goron and Raizada, 2015). A millet grain thresher is a machine derived from the original grain thresher created by the Scottish engineer Andrew Meikle in 1786 (Norman, n.d.). This machine’s sole purpose is to ease a woman farmer’s task of threshing millet and does so faster and more reliably than traditional manual methods in Africa and South Asia. The traditional methods are time-consuming, economically inefficient and physically painful as they can cause back pain from repetitive action (Mistra & Satapathy, 2018).</P>
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        <h3 class="title-bg">What Is The Millet Grain Thresher </h3>
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            <p>A millet grain thresher is a machine with the sole purpose of separating the grain from their protective coats and is much faster than the traditional method of beating the grains with a flail which is also less reliable (see the video in the Practical Links section1) because of the high rate of grains broken between 1-2% (Proctor, 1994). As shown in Figure 1, the millet grain thresher is a machine that works by the farmer adding the millet seed in the designated slot, then the rotation cylinder inside the machine will separate the seed from their panicles and the bulk from the straw, and finally, the unused tissues are discharged at the other end (see the video in the Practical Links section2) </p>
            <p>[[Image:MILKC.webp|thumb|centre|Figure 1. Example of a millet grain thresher. See reference 4]]</p>
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        <h3 class="title-bg">Cost And Critical Analysis </h3>
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            <p>The millet grain thresher can improve production by incentivizing farmers to grow millet on more land, as manual threshing is currently a major limitation.  On the other hand, the millet thresher is expensive, and difficult to transport because of its large size and weight and expense. The average price for a medium size unit of a portable millet grain thresher is $3,000 USD, while a larger industrial unit costs $80,000 – $100,000 USD (Made-in-China, 2022). The high cost enlightens a simple problem: in most developing countries, the majority of the population earns an average of $1-2 U.S. dollars per day (Our World in Data, 2019), so the machinery is not affordable. The population that could most benefit from this equipment in Africa and South Asia simply cannot afford it.</p>

            <p>One solution to the high cost is to form a collective (e.g., women’s farmer group) to share the cost of a millet grain thresher. A good example of that is the farmer collective, Alluvial Agriculture in Nigeria, which reached an agreement with the tractor maker John Deere and the Indian conglomerate Tata group, to provide farming equipment to 100,000 smallholder farmers (Next Billion, 2018). Another approach is to offer microenterprise loans to a local entrepreneur who can purchase the equipment and offer a fee-for-service to women in the village. Alternatively, governments or NGOs need to offer large subsidies or low-cost loans such as the project led by the LAFC (see the practical link section3). . Over time, farmers using the thresher will save money, use less labour, and will produce more.</p>

            <p>On the other hand, developing countries in Africa might be hurt by machinery since “the agricultural sector employs an average of 54 percent of the working population. In Burundi, Burkina Faso, and Madagascar, more than 80 percent of the labor force works in agriculture” (Sow, 2017). The reduced need for agricultural general labour would increase the unemployment rate, though this concern is not relevant at the village/household level.</p>
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        <h1 class="title-bg">Critical Analysis</h1>
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            <p>There is unequal access to the millet grain thresher, likely due to a lack of knowledge and its high cost. As an example of similar machinery, in 2014, there were less than 10 maize thresher machinery sets per square kilometre of farmland in Africa, compared to 257 sets in the United Kingdom, 200 in the United States, 130 in India and 125 in Brazil”(Next Billion, 2018). Farmers in remote regions follow the practices of their ancestors, with no way to know that there is a more efficient method to thresh millet.</p>

            <p>Transport is a significant problem since the millet grain thresher is a heavy piece of machinery, which may require good roads, a truck and a forklift to install which may be challenging in remote regions in many developing nations (readers are encouraged to check the weight of the thresher in the thresher for sale useful link).</p>

            <p>Another challenge is that this piece of equipment can easily malfunction or break down, but repairs in remote regions would be challenging, and transporting it to a repair shop would be expensive.</p>

            <p>More importantly, the thresher is a machine that requires gas or electricity, so for a farmer to be able to use it, they must have reliable access to a source of energy, which is not necessarily the case in Africa nor in some parts of India. The electricity access report of 2020 shows that some developing countries have less than 20% of their population with  access to electricity (Our World in Data, 2020)</p>

            <p>A final problem that has been reported by farmers with farm machinery is injury, perhaps due to a lack of training, combined with high rates of illiteracy. A study done in the US stated that at least 11,880 injuries, and 368 farm-related injuries, occurred in the US alone in 2020 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,2022).</p>
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        <h3 class="title-bg">Conclusion</h3>
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            <p>A millet grain thresher is a machine that offers farmers the possibility to thresh their millet faster than traditional methods, with much less labour, ultimately promoting the growth of millets which are highly nutritious. However, it is expensive and requires maintenance and training. It may be most appropriate for commercial farmers, a farmer cooperative or a village-level entrepreneur offering it for a fee-for-service. </p>
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        <h1 class="title-bg">Picture Based Lesson to Train Farmers </h1>
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            [[Image:9.12 page-0001.webp|thumb|centre|Picture Based Lesson to Train Farmer|Click on the image to access a higher resolution image as well as lessons adapted for different geographic regions.]]</p>
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        <h3 class="title-bg">Practical Resources To Get Started</h3>
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            <p>1.   Josh Heikkila, (2011, October 25). Threshing millet [0.14]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/UusHepsdcJY</p>
            <p>2.	 Hank Weiwei Machine, (2022,September 29). millet thresher machine [0.10]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/7vl8Q2PbXIE</p>
            <p>3.	LAFC. Lending for African Food Security. https://www.lendingforafricanfarming.com </p>
            <p>4.	Thresher for sale useful link: https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/millet-thresher-machine.html</p>
            <p>5.	Thresher for sale useful link: https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/millet-thresher-25293103130.html</p>

            <p><b>Picture based training lessons for farmers</b></p>
            <p>http://www.sakbooks.com/uploads/8/1/5/7/81574912/9.12_south_asian_eng.pdf
                5 versions</p>
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        <h3 class="title-bg">References</h3>
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            <p>1.	Norman, J. (n/d). Andrew Meikle Invents the Threshing Machine. History of Information. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=4656
                Mistra, D. and Satapathy, S. (2018). Musculoskeletal & Risk Assessment during Threshing of Rice-Grain. MATEC Web of Conferences 172, 05005  https://www.matec-conferences.org/articles/matecconf/pdf/2018/31/matecconf_icdams2018_05005.pdf</p>
            <p> 2.	Proctor, D.L. (1994). Grain storage techniques Evolution and trends in developing countries. FAO, Rome. https://www.fao.org/3/t1838e/T1838E0p.htm#Technical%20alternatives </p>
            <p>3.	Taizy (2022) .Thresher machine, for rice, wheat, millet. Taizy Company. https://www.agriculture-machine.com/big-thresher-for-rice-wheat-beans-sorghum-millet/</p>
            <p>4.	Our World in Data (2019). Median income or expenditure per day 2019. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?country=OWID_WRL~ESP~KOR~MDG </p>
            <p>5.	Our World in Data (2020). Access to energy in 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access </p>
            <p>6.	Made-in-China (2022). Thresher price. https://www.made-in-china.com/price/thresher-price.html?prodPhrase=&minProdPrice=&maxProdPrice=&minNumOrder=&businessType=&order=price_desc
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            <p>7.	Next billion (2018, April 30). Africa’s Biggest Farmer Collective to Help 100,000 in Niger Delta as Tata and John Deere Sign Alluvial Initiative. https://nextbillion.net/news/press-release-africas-biggest-farmer-collective-help-100000-niger-delta-tata-john-deere-sign-alluvial-initiative/ </p>
            <p>8.	Sow, M. (2017, January 11). Figures of the week: Sub-Saharan Africa’s labor market in 2017. Brookings Institute, USA. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2017/01/11/figures-of-the-week-sub-saharan-africas-labor-market-in-2017/ </p>
            <p>9.	Victor Farm Machinery (2022). Maize Thresher Machine Price in Nigeria and South Africa. https://www.cornmachine.com/maize-thresher-machine-price.html</p>
            <p>10.	Goron, T.L. and Raizada, M.N. (2015) Genetic diversity and genomic resources available for the small millet crops to accelerate a New Green Revolution. Frontiers in Plant Science 6, 157. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2015.00157/full</p>
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