The fonio husking machine was invented by Sanoussi Diakité, a

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

ese

mechanical engineer Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations o ...

. Diakité was awarded the Rolex Award in 1996 for the invention.

Fonio Fonio, also sometimes called findi or acha, is the term for two cultivated grasses in the genus '' Digitaria'' that are important crops in parts of West Africa. It is a vital food source in many rural areas, especially in the mountains of Fouta ...

is a

staple crop A staple food, food staple, or simply staple, is a food that is eaten often and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard diet for an individual or a population group, supplying a large fraction of energy needs an ...

in western

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. Because the fonio

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

s are so small, their brittle outer shell is difficult to remove. "For hundreds of years, African women have carried out the painstaking task of preparing fonio by pounding and threshing a grain and sand mixture with a pestle and mortar. After one hour of this tedious work, only two kilograms of fonio are available for consumption and fifteen liters of water are needed to remove the sand." The whole process has been reduced from a 1-hour job to a 6-minute job. Diakité's solution was a device that gently abrades the surface of the seed before passing through a rotating mechanism, which removes the husks. The machine can husk of fonio in 8 minutes.

Awards

Diakité's device is an example of

appropriate technology Appropriate technology is a movement (and its manifestations) encompassing technology, technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by its users, labor-intensive, efficient energy use, energy-efficient, environmentally sust ...

, because of its ability to solve a significant problem in developing countries and the ease with which it can be manufactured. In 2008, Diakité's work was one of the laureates of The Tech Awards in the Health Award category. Diakité received the Innovation Prize for Africa in 2013.{{Cite news, url=https://vc4a.com/blog/2013/05/08/innovation-prize-for-africa-2013-announces-winners/, title=Innovation Prize for Africa 2013 announces winners, work=Venture Capital for Africa, access-date=2017-10-13, language=en-US, archive-date=2017-10-14, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014034546/https://vc4a.com/blog/2013/05/08/innovation-prize-for-africa-2013-announces-winners/, url-status=dead

References

Appropriate technology Senegalese inventions

Awards

See also

References