Today, technology has reached levels of advancement only science fiction had imagined in the 1950s. Self-driving cars, gene editing, robotics, missions to outer space and innumerable innovations in software and hardware have advanced technology to unprecedented levels, documents reveal.
Ethiopia’s tech scene is still burgeoning but some developments are still worth mentioning. To be competent in the digital world requires advancement in science and technology. To come up with this, proper attention for quality education and training is a must. Unquestionably, the secret of nations that put themselves on the tower of prosperity is because of capacitating their human resource in education and training.
Imitating the developed nations’ experience, Ethiopia as a developing nation is emphasizing Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TYET) cognizant to its vital role for the nation’s growth. The number of technical and vocational institutions at the national level has grown up to 1,687 to imply that the sector is given proper attention from the government side.
National level competitions are held in innovation backed by technology, research and skill amid these institutions. Dealing with such contests enables the institutions produce competent professionals apart from generating problem solving innovations.
Due to these, the contribution of the institutions has been growing day -to-day in generating and transferring problem solving technologies. Among the problem solving innovations made by instructors of TVET and presented on a contest conducted by Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MinT) is a multi-purpose threshing machine.
The innovation is made by Arbaminch Polytechnique and Satellite Institute. Instructors of the institute manufacturing department: Samson Hailu, Mekonnen Filatie, Muluqen Gezahegn and Gizachew Kebede made the machine as a team. Apart from ranking first on the instructors’ innovation contest held in Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) State, their innovation work awarded a silver medal competing on the ninth innovation competition conducted by Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MinT).
Representing his colleagues, Gizachew Kebede told The Ethiopian Press Agency about the appearance of the innovation and its impact for the nation. As to him, their innovation is multi-purpose threshing machine; it can separate corn from its stem, thresh wheat, barley and sorghum. And also it processes the waste for animals’ feed. This machine is different from earlier machines of its kind in the way that the previous ones are mono-purpose which means they thresh only one grain but this one can do three things.
He said that the innovation work is finalized within six months and tested in 2017 and transferred to farmers. It is made up of local inputs like metal sheet, metals with different shape and type, aluminum sheet and dynamo.
It is operational by using electric power but whenever there is no electric power, it can function by mini generator. Thus, since electric power is not accessible on farmers’ land, they can fix water pump to the dynamo installed on the machine to make the machine easily operational.
Farmers can push the machine as a hand-driven cart in order to move easily from place to place, but in case the landscape is not suitable for pushing, four men can pick and transport by holding its handles.
Initiation to innovate the machine
The initiation to innovate the machine, as to the instructor, is what they observed that farmers separating corn from its stem in a tedious way using their hand during their visit to woredas and kebeles in order to train micro and small enterprises and provide professional support for cooperative associations.
Such kind of separation is tiresome, tedious, time consuming and in efficient. About 40 people working the whole day in group can only produce the maximum of 20 quintals of corn. And also it is so costly to the owners of the product because they have to prepare food and drink for all those engaged on the work.
The other traditional way of threshing is using stick and this in turn resulted in wastage and less quality products as the product is broken down and mixed with soil.
“In order to avoid fatigue and bankruptcy of the farmers,” said Gizachew, “we initiated to make the machine that eases the farmers’ effort. Using the machine, one or two people can thresh up to 40 quintals of grain within an hour so that the farmers can upgrade their product and productivity in addition to saving time and money.”
Earlier, while threshing traditionally, the farmers used to leave the pile of hay where they threshed their grain and few animals eat there and disperse the other which can easily feed a minimum of 50 animals and this is additional wastage. But the machine can properly process the hay to animals’ feed which result in saving the hay.
In general, in addition to modernizing the farmers’ production system to upgrading product and productivity and easily processing animals’ feed, the machine creates job for micro and small enterprises when they engage to manufacturing and selling it. And also, some children of the farmers can get job by buying and renting the machine to users, said Gizachew.
Regarding manipulation of the machine, Gizachew noted that it is easily usable for it has its own manual prepared with pictures. The machine has three parts: one is used for separating corn from its stem; the second one is for threshing barley, wheat and sorghum and the third one is for processing animals’ food.
When a person adds corn into the machine, it separates the grain from its stem and release in two different ways and in the same way, it threshes the wheat, the barley and the sorghum and put out the grains and processed animals’ feed in different ways, added Gizachew.
The way the machine is made is safe for handling and does not cause any harm even on children since the risky parts are covered with metal sheet.
The total cost of production is 10,000 Birr, said Gizachew , but if it is imported it costs 25,000 Birr. Moreover, the imported one is mono-purpose that it can thresh only one kind of grain along with processing animals’ feed.
For the future, according to Gizachew, they are on the way to improve the effectiveness of the machine and dealing with the college’s electrical department instructors to make operational the machine with solar energy.
The Ethiopian Herald October 1, 2019
BY BACHA ZEWDIE
