Sanoussi
Diakité: Fonio Dehulling
This information is supplied by Rolux and is
available
online on their enterprise awards site www.rolexawards.com.
The
production of fonio, one of the most nutritious and best-tasting of
African cereals, has steadily declined in the last few decades due to the
tedious process of removing the brittle husks from the grain. Sanoussi
Diakité, a Senegalese mechanical engineer, has invented a husking machine
which, by taking the drudgery out of preparing fonio, should put this
once-popular foodstuff back on tables throughout the Sahelian region.
There is
an African saying that the stamina of a young bride may be measured by her
ability to prepare fonio. Fonio (Digitaria exilis) is a highly nutritious
cereal which, although known since the sixteenth century, is about to
disappear.
Cultivated in some 15 African countries, from the Cape Verde Islands to
Chad and including the Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Togo, fonio grows
easily in the Sahelian environment. It can withstand draught and floods
and flourishes in poor soils at a speed that enables local farmers to
benefit from two or three harvests a year. Why then have these farmers
progressively abandoned it as a crop?
Fonio's
major handicap is the two brittle husks that surround each tiny seed -
each about the size of a grain of sand - and make the actual husking
process extremely difficult and time consuming.
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 litres of water are needed to remove the sand.
Delicious
Memories
Sanoussi Diakité is a 36-year-old Senegalese mechanical engineering
teacher who is familiar with fonio as he grew up in a region where this
delicious and once popular cereal was grown. "I remember during my
childhood fonio was served as a meal two or three times a week," he
recalls fondly.
A combination of nostalgia, his interest in grain processing technology
and, perhaps above all, the challenge of solving a practical problem
prompted Diakité to invent the world's first purpose-built fonio husking
machine. His education and background, in particular a degree from ENSETP,
the national school for higher technical and professional studies in
Dakar, prepared him to tackle the difficult job at hand.
A 50-kilogram apparatus, delicately abrades the surface of the seeds as
they move from a hopper to the husking chamber where they pass through
rotating mechanisms in order to eliminate the bothersome husks. Now, in
only six minutes, two kilos of fonio are husked without crushing the
seeds.
 "I
set out to create a machine that would be easy and relatively inexpensive
to make and maintain and that would be energy efficient," says
Diakité.
"This process took three years to accomplish, but the first two
prototypes have been well-received by the local people and by agricultural
experts. Mass producing the machines comes next, but some preliminary
steps must be followed before large scale production begins."
In the early stages, Diakité personally financed the project and worked
diligently after hours in the workshops of the Maurice Delafosse Technical
and Industrial College in Dakar where he teaches.
Following
the granting of a patent in 1994, the African Development Foundation in
Washington D.C. declared its support, and in October 1995, it began
financing five second-generation prototypes and a socio-economic study to
verify the integrity of the machines.
Over a 14-month period, Diakité will methodically test the five
experimental models. He will monitor the yield and observe how they are
used by his partners in Senegal, Guinea and Mali who are involved in fonio
production. For Diakité, the reaction of the local people to the process
is as important as the technical data collected from the performance
tests.
Once the field tests are completed to his satisfaction, Diakité will
implement any improvements, and the machine will be ready for fabrication.
Funding from his Rolex Award will provide the seed money to set up the
factory and get it running.
Impact
in Africa
The project has raised a lot of interest throughout Africa where fonio
growers are waiting for an efficient husking machine to revive the
cultivation of one of Africa's best cereals. Newspaper articles have
heralded the machine's arrival and described Diakité as an entrepreneur
with a burning passion.
Beyond the fact that, thanks to Diakité's determination, fonio can now be
produced in a short time and at a low cost, the project should have
significant impact on agricultural and nutritional research in Africa.
When questioned about the validity of the machine, experts such as the
head of the Intellectual Property Office at the Senegalese Ministry of
Energy and Industry and the director of Dakar's Institute of Food
Technology were overwhelming in their support and praise for this
"original technical solution". They described it as a major
invention for Africa that will "have a strong effect on the supply of
food in the Sahel region". According to these authorities, Diakité's
project is expected to spark interest in fonio by-products and the
improved production of other grains.
For the Rolex Laureate, receiving the Award brings him closer to achieving
his long-sought-after goal - production of fonio on a large scale and,
consequently, access by the African people to this once staple component
of their diet.
Mr Sanoussi Diakité
B.P. 1837 Dakar
Senegal
Tel: (+221) 37 10 22
|
