CTI Receives World Bank Funding to Mechanize Farmer’s Groups in Senegal

Program aims to reduce drudgery and boost food production of rural poor
 
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Feb. 5, 2015 - PRLog -- St. Paul-based nonprofit Compatible Technology International (CTI) is launching a new initiative in Senegal with support from a $450,000 USD grant from the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) of the World Bank through the National Fund for Research in Agriculture and Nutrition (FNRAA) to bring mechanized post-harvest processing tools to rural farmers.

Over the next two-and-a-half years, CTI is partnering with agricultural extension agency ANCAR, Senegal’s National Agency for Agricultural and Rural Advice, to deliver hand-operated grain threshing tools and peanut grinders to women’s groups and farmers’ organizations in 200 villages throughout Senegal, West Africa, directly impacting at least 15,000 people. CTI and ANCAR will demonstrate the tools and provide technical and business training. They will work directly with researchers, manufacturers, financial institutes, and distributors throughout Senegal to further their adoption potential.

The program is part of the Government of Senegal’s agricultural development strategy to strengthen food security with crops like millet, increasing rural access to agricultural tools, and boosting local food production among smallholder farmers. CTI’s tools support these goals and fill an important gap by reducing the food loss and women’s drudgery associated with traditional processing methods.

“The project responds to the need to help the most vulnerable, who are women and youth,” said Dr. El Hadji Pap N. Sall, Director General of FNRAA. “It reduces their work drudgery and allows them to focus on other activities while also increasing productivity in the rural sector.”

Communities will receive CTI’s pearl millet thresher, a hand-operated tool that provides an affordable, labor-saving alternative to inefficient traditional processing methods such as mortar and pestle, which often result in low-quality grain and food loss. Communities will also receive CTI’s grinder, a hand-operated, light-weight burr mill. The grinder can produce flour from grain and a creamy paste from roasted nuts, allowing for opportunities in microenterprise selling grinding and processing services or value-added products such as peanut butter.

“There is immense potential among small farmers, and simple innovations are a powerful way to boost agricultural production and spur economic development in Senegal and throughout the region,” said CTI Executive Director Alexandra Spieldoch. “But delivering promising new technologies hinges on committed partnerships between US researchers that can help generate and develop new ideas, and local community leaders and agencies that know the landscape and are already working to provide practical resources for rural farmers.”

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Compatible Technology International (CTI) is a St. Paul, MN-based nonprofit that designs and distributes tools in collaboration with small farmers and their communities to improve food and water security in developing nations. CTI’s tools empower smallholder farmers with better food production, increased incomes and more sustainable livelihoods.

Photos are available for download here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/65259400@N04/sets/721576428...

Media Contact
Meghan Fleckenstein
meghan@compatibletechnology.org
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