Turning junkyard materials to multicrops processing machine

The prototype equipment is a mechanically multi crops processing machine. But rather than celebrating the discovery of the industrial engineer who put his decades of experience to work and came up with the machine, the fear of whether the nation’s leadership would appreciate such innovation to better the lots of the suffering famers dominated discourse […]

The prototype equipment is a mechanically multi crops processing machine. But rather than celebrating the discovery of the industrial engineer who put his decades of experience to work and came up with the machine, the fear of whether the nation’s leadership would appreciate such innovation to better the lots of the suffering famers dominated discourse at the event.

DIGNITARIES AT THE OCCASION

The representative of the USAID in Abuja, Mr. Nduka Okaro and Charlotte Bernhard from the Netherlands Embassy in Abuja were on ground at the demonstration ceremony to give their blessing to the giant stride and they wished the government should look in that direction to encourage legions of Nigerians with such ingenuity. The dignitaries at the event included representatives of NAPEP, NDE and the Bank of Industry. The quality advise on way forward.

The machine primarily designed and fabricated with junkyard materials, is a multipurpose equipment for the processing of cassava flour or gari, including that of yam, potatoes and other tuber crops. The timeline for the processing of cassava and yam from raw tuber to flour is about 24 hours unlike the manual method by famers that takes about one week.

WHAT THE MACHINE DOES

Demonstrating the cassava processing prototype machine, the innovator, Engr. Famro said the machine has flexibility and speed advantage over others. “It can be set right in the farm, moved, assembled and dissembled within 30 minutes. It also generates own electricity, a device that makes the machine to work 24 hours nonstop and can operate under enclosure, thus, when it rains, one needn’t to be worried” he said

The machine according to him is put to many other usages like processing Soya-beans into Flour and Milk, Sweet potatoes into Flour and/or Starch, Maize or corn into Flour and/or Starch, Guinea corn into Flour and/or Starch, Millet into Flour and/or Starch, Rice into Flour and/or Starch, Extraction of oils and water in the processing of vegetable oils such as Shea-nut butter, Palm oil, Ginger oil and others without following the rigorous manual method.

The designer of the machine who is an industrial engineer by training and practice, noted that his decision to come up with the five-in-one machine was informed by the realization that local farmers on yearly basis lose an alarming percentage of their farm produce owing to their inability to process the yield themselves right on the farm.

“The practice where middle men do the processing or the farmers have to transport the produce to the processing centre has for long held farmers hostage and it is reasonably unrewarding for the farmer who invest a whole year in cassava or yam farming but get less than what can sustain an average family for few months” he stated.

THE MOTIVATION FOR THE PROJECT

He said apart from the lost in yield, the process of transporting the produce from the farm to the processing point takes a while, thereby reducing the quality of the cassava as the case may be and in most cases, produce got spoilt or damaged, hence the motivation to invent the potable machine that can be used on the farm by the farmers themselves.

The government’s policy on cassava was another factor. The designer of the plant said he responded to the policy thrust that cassava should be made 10% of the content of flour for bread and some other flour related bakery products.

“But there is no clear cut directive, and the flour mills came up with their own criteria that farmers should supply milled cassava flour of 80 measures and should be nontoxic flour and famers cannot meet this. So what I have assembled here would assist farmers to produce high quality cassava flour” he said

The machine according to him is designed to save farmers from tiresome experience of having to grind and drain cassava for days to extract the starch and toxic. In the machine’s extractor, the grinded cassava is mixed with water and after a process; the water is being drained through a channel until it is completely drained.

ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE

Then the cassava fibre comes out clear, odorless and toxic free, ready to be dried into flour or fried for gari. The entire process can occur within few hours, unlike the local process that takes days.

The machine displayed is said to be a demonstration sample, but the fabricator is expecting a situation where government and other donor agencies can partner with him to enable him go into full scale production of the machines to meet the farming needs of the famers in the country.

“It is also important to know that the starch that is recovered with the use of the liquid extractor (instead of the screw press) in the course of processing cassava into either gari or flour, fetches more money in the market than gari or flour produced. In other words, the revenue obtainable from processing cassava with the starch recovered 100% can be at least doubled of what is presently obtained using the existing processing method of screw-pressing away this valuable product” he said

Giving enabling financial environment, Engr. Famro is wishing to touch lives of the farmers, but he is financially incapacitated to do that. However, his prayers are that his dream should not be allowed to die like others before him, insisting that the future of the country lies in the proper utilization of the talented human resources that abound in all fields of endeavour.

To make head way, he said the government must change her attitude and stop misusing the expertise in the country, fuming that it was surprising that the government that fails to utilize the professionals at home is asking those in the Diaspora to return home.

 He appealed to government at all levels to facilitate mass production of the machines for each of the 774 council areas even if it was to serve as a model, adding that by the time the farmers get to know the difference, they would on their own work towards getting the machine which he said is cost effective.

WHO IS ENGR. SULEIMAN BOLARINDE FAMRO?

Famro is an industrial engineer by training and practice. He was born many years ago at Ifeolukpeku in the present Kogi state.  He did his primary and secondary school in Nigeria before he proceeded to the United States on African American institute scholarship to study Industrial Engineering. Two years later, he returned to the state for his masters’ degree in the same course.

Famro’s innovative capacity has distinguished him in the course of practice. He was the first to introduce the unity bottling system world over(using a single bottle to bottle different flavor) that innovation for Cola took him places.