(A column highlighting scientific, technological, engineering, and design innovation in Africa)
Sulaiman Bolarinde Famro, a 65-year-old Nigerian project consultant with a deep interest in rendering local small-scale industries more efficient, invented the Farmking Mobile Multi-Crop Processor to reduce both the time it takes to process tubers such as cassava, sweet potatoes, soy, shea nuts, grains and cereals, and the amount of waste produced in processing.
What normally takes three to four days with the traditional crude fermentation and pressing technology now can be done in five minutes using Famro’s processor.
The device essentially is a system comprising a number of parts that is mounted on a mobile platform to facilitate transportation from one location to another. The system uses centrifugal force to separate the tubers from liquid, particles and impurities or toxic elements. It creates a “paste,” from the tubers that can be used to make food such as fufu—a traditional staple eaten all over Sub-Saharan Africa—and leaves starch as a by-product.
Traditionally, this starch is discarded as waste, but the Farmking machine allows the collection of this starch that can then be sold to the pharmaceutical industry for a number of industrial processes. This greatly increases farming outputs and revenues for farmers while saving the environment from the degradation that occurs with improper disposal of the starch.
In an interview reported by AfricanGlobe.net, an online service disseminating news and information about Black people around the world, Famro contends that low productivity is one of the factors responsible for poverty in Africa.
“We exact so much energy and time in doing very little,” he is quoted as saying. “I looked at the operations involved in our agriculture and processing, I noticed that from the planting point to harvesting, there are a lot of wastages. Cassava for instance, from fermentation to removing the toxic, I felt there could be a quicker way of doing it, which is why I developed the system.”
Famro said he patented the Farmking Mobile Multi Crop Processor in 2006.
The machine was one of 10 finalists in the 2014 Innovation Prize for Africa competition, the only submission from Nigeria to make the top 10 list. Famro is counting on the exposure given to his invention by the competition to attract the attention of stakeholders and investors.
