Operational Themes -
Economic Development
Technical card
Location: Niger
Dates: 2006-2009
Technical partners: AGRIDEL
Financial partners: French International Solidarity Committee (CFSI), MACIF foundation, LDE bookshop, Symphasis foundation
Description
Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 80% of its population living in rural areas and relying on subsistence farming or nomadic herding. Most daily domestic tasks, essentially undertaken by women, involve arduous labour with a worrying impact on their life expectancy. In view of this, GERES was keen to alleviate the hardship of women's domestic work by mechanizing the hulling of millet, the staple food.
In Niger, millet is the main cereal crop. Almost all the 400,000 tonnes of millet harvested per year are still processed in the traditional manner, with the pestle and mortar. Threshing takes up at least two hours of women's time and energy every day.
GERES Niger decided to help a manufacturing workshop in Dosso in the elaboration of a mechanized treshing machine adapted to the rural context. Mechanizing millet threshing has many positive impacts:
- time saving: women and girls can devote themselves to their studies
- post-harvest millet improvement: 1,000 millet bags per machine per year, more than 400 families will improve their alimentary sovereignty
- income-generating activity: creation of jobs for treshing machine management
Download the Project sheet (fr)
