Field testing

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The Ant Farm thresher and Namibia 2015

2019-04-28T18:41:03+00:00

We learned from the 2014 trip to Niger that the threshers we'd built so far were inadequate for their pearl millet. There was significantly more variation in the panicles than there was in the millet we used for testing in Massachusetts. Left: The pearl millet grown on campus at Hampshire College was extremely uniform, allowing for more predictable threshing. Right: The panicles in Namibia and Niger are much more varied, and often break apart more easily. We realized that we needed to incorporate some amount of winnowing into the process, so that the thresher would produce clean grain. The Ant [...]

The Ant Farm thresher and Namibia 20152019-04-28T18:41:03+00:00

Niger 2015 Field Testing

2019-04-28T18:23:00+00:00

Team members Susan Hanna and Roo Trimble were in Niger from November 3 to 14, 2015, field testing the most recent version of the HIT. They started off the trip accompanied by Nat Bascom, the assistant director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sorghum and Millet (SMIL). In Niger, they workedclosely with Moustapha Moussa of National Institute of Agricultural Research of Niger (INRAN) who arranged visits to villages, local industry, university and labs. In the trip we sought authentic feedback from the women farmers and their families on the most recent iteration of the High Impact Thresher known as the AF2. The name [...]

Niger 2015 Field Testing2019-04-28T18:23:00+00:00

Niger 2015 rough cut

2015-11-24T20:09:11+00:00

This is a rough cut of the images and video from the 2015 Niger trip. Not all of the data has come back, and we're working on some more organized presentations, but this is the version that Roo and Susan have been using to accompany presentations summarizing their experience in Niger. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B99UNysDbGBec0Fqd3hKakVqcGc/preview

Niger 2015 rough cut2015-11-24T20:09:11+00:00