Hand-Operated Seed Cleaner for Ugandan Women Farmer Groups

Margaret Smith and colleagues at Iowa State University in the U.S. will evaluate a simple, portable, hand-operated seed cleaner using 320 women farmers in Uganda. Current practices are physically demanding, time consuming, and reduce the quality of the grain. They will refine the design of the seed cleaner using input from the target farmers to produce a second-generation device for local manufacturing. It will then be tested with several legume crops for durability, ease of transport, and affordability for groups of smallholder women farmers.