Labor-Saving Pearl Millet Thresher for sub-Saharan Africa

Donna Cohn and colleagues from Hampshire College in the U.S. will develop a cheap and simple threshing machine to more easily and carefully process pearl millet, which is a highly nutritious staple cereal grown in sub-Saharan Africa. To extract the edible grains, pearl millet is currently processed by hand, which is labor-intensive and highly inefficient, causing substantial reductions in yield. They will refine their thresher design, including producing variations for powering it, and field-test prototypes in Ghana for performance. This will drive further refinements to generate a final design, for which production costs will be determined.