Multi-Crop Thresher

Summary

The Multi-Crop Thresher (MCT) is an agricultural technology that mechanically separates grains from crops. Users can configure the MCT to thresh several crops, including maize, soya beans, rice, millet, cowpea, Bambara beans, and sorghum. While existing mechanical threshing solutions exist on the global market, these are prohibitively expensive for small to medium-scale farmers and cooperatives. This thresher is locally manufactured, which supports economic growth, and is affordable for smallholder farmers.

Challenge/Problem

Farm equipment imported into Africa is often not appropriately designed for local conditions. Furthermore, hand threshed soybean is sometimes refused by grain buyers in some countries due to a high level of dirt and stone contamination caused by threshing on the ground. Other challenges involving current threshing options:
 

- Manual threshing leads to post-harvest losses – losses incurred during threshing are the second leading contributor to post-harvest losses in most crops after storage.

- Smallholders produce lower grain quality – manual threshing leads to low-quality grain production due to spillage, grain breakage, and incomplete separation of grain from the chaff. 

- Existing solutions are prohibitively expensive – smallholder farmers and cooperatives cannot afford to import threshers. In cases where importing is an option, replacement parts and maintenance expertise are unavailable and expensive to maintain in many developing countries. 

- Existing solutions not adapted for non-commercial farms in developing countries – threshing equipment available in international markets is ill-suited to the rough field conditions that characterize smallholder operations.

Solution

The Multi-Crop Thresher is a field-tested solution that can shell maize in the husk and thresh soybean and rice products with little to no grain loss or breakage. Interchangeable concave sieves make it usable for multiple crops. To date, customers have successfully utilized the solution to thresh maize, soybean, rice, sorghum, millet, cowpea, and common beans.
 

- Faster than manual threshing – evidence suggests that the SIL Multi-Crop Thresher can thresh soybean 40 times faster than the traditional stick beating method. SIL research points to positive impacts that cut across the value chain including, improved grain quality, an increase in the market value of produce, and a reduction in postharvest losses.

- Specifically designed for developing countries – the solution is sized and priced for mid-sized farmers or service providers for smallholder farmers ($3,000 - $5,000, depending on the cost of local materials), and manufactured specifically for the rougher field conditions typically present in smallholder operations in developing countries.

- Locally produced using locally sourced parts – Customized training workshops in Multi-Crop Thresher fabrication is available through local partners. Since 2016, 200 fabricators across Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda have now gone on to produce threshers that are operating across Africa. In-market fabrication training creates jobs among African youth and advances participating communities into value-added manufacturing.

Results

Hundreds of multi-crop threshers have been built since 2019, with large commercialization programs in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Zambia. The Multi-Crop Thresher technology is currently available for manufacturing across Africa. Equipment manufacturers can access the manufacturing specifications and training for the product through one of 200 trained fabricators across Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Targeted customer segments:
 

- Equipment suppliers – equipment Suppliers can integrate the Multi-Crop Thresher into its product offerings as a lower cost and locally available solution to service providers, cooperatives, and other customers. Providing further diversity to imported alternatives, the Multi-Crop Thresher is an attractive solution for equipment suppliers to target customers which do not have the connections and resources to import replacement parts and hire specialized maintenance services.

- Service providers – the Multi-Crop Thresher is an attractive product for service providers to adopt to provide harvesting services to cooperatives and smallholder farmers whose business model is to contract rather than invest directly into harvesting equipment.

- Cooperatives and farmers associations – for cooperatives and farmers associations which provide harvesting services as part of their service to their members, the Multi-Crop Thresher allows groups to invest in lower cost technologies while having easy access to expertise and replacement parts.

Lessons Learned/Potential for replication

From the inception of this project, commercial stakeholders have been integrally involved as program beneficiaries, technology developers, and scaling partners. The technology is in high demand but many times unaffordable to individual farmers, so when teamed with service provision it can become financially viable for all involved. Financing is the biggest challenge in increasing agricultural mechanization as debt-based capital is often required to purchase machines. Our scaling partners are addressing finance issues in various ways, including marketing to grain buyers and end users (food and feed manufacturers), who need clean grain on demand and who are more able to invest in machinery.

Next Steps

- Scaling is currently in the hands of multiple commercial partners, several of which are seeking outside investment.

- With better financing, commercial scaling partners can move to mass production and benefit from economies of scale.

- Research is currently underway to replicate this successful program with fabrication manuals for planters and a pull-behind combine.

- New commercial partners with viable business plans are currently being recruited to increase the distribution network.