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FtF-USAID AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER PROJECT

SIL-ADVANCE-ATT SOYBEAN THRESHER DESIGN AND FABRICATION TRAINING

REPORT OF WORK COMPLETED; August 25, 2016

Kerry Clark, Soybean Innovation Lab; clarkk@missouri.edu

209 Mumford Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211; 1-660-351-4696

http://soybeaninnovationlab.illinois.edu/

The objective of this workshop was to teach business development and design and

fabrication of crop threshers appropriate for smallholder use and financial means to 12

community-oriented blacksmiths from Upper West, Upper East and Northern Ghana (three from

each region plus three from Tamale Implement Factory). The rationale for the training was that

locally fabricated threshers can be produced more inexpensively than imports and local

fabrication expertise will provide a knowledgeable work force for thresher maintenance and

repair. There is currently very little local production of timesaving equipment such as threshers

in Ghana. More widespread availability and lower costs will allow more smallholder farmers to

access thresher technology, reducing workload and harvest drudgery, and allowing for easier

scale-up of production agriculture.

Details of the training are listed in following sections, but I

first want to communicate the essence of the training. I believe that

this was one of the best workshops that I have ever participated in

during my 27 year career working in agriculture. The trainers were

excellent and hit on incredibly important topics, the venue was well

suited for the event, and the participants were extremely receptive and

appreciative of the lessons. I believe that the subject matter was

incredibly appropriate and the timing of the training was essential for

the blossoming of a new industry in Ghana at a time when the country

is poised for new technology that can lead to increased production

and improved agricultural sustainability. The cell phone revolution

has opened the door to information and communication that will have

a cascading effect throughout this society. Without this improved

communication, we could not even have contacted many of these

people and had all invitees show up at the right place and time. At the

close of the training, several participants made long heartfelt speeches

about how excited and happy they were to have been included in the

training, which will allow them to get in on the bottom floor of what

can become an important new industry in Ghana. My greatest reward

was their participation and hard work. This was topped off with a

wonderful Facebook message a week after the end of the training that included photos (right) of

one participant making his first thresher immediately after his return home. Not only is he

providing a service to local farmers, but I see in the photos that he is already teaching five other

people the fabrication techniques he has just gained from the USAID-funded training.

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Date and Location of Training

August 1-8, 2016 at the Tamale Implement Factory in Tamale, Ghana.

Instructors

The thresher designer and lead fabrication instructor was Gabriel Ayichim Zulkarini

Abdulai, an engineer from SARI and the secondary instructor was Baba Issahaku, a welder from

SARI. Both were present and working all eight days of the workshop. Philip Atim from CRS

facilitated the workshop and selected the participants. Kerry Clark from SIL also facilitated and

helped educate participants in thresher utilization. Bernard Alando, a data manager from UDS

and a consultant from Innovative Trends Ghana conducted the business training on day seven.

Tamale Implement Factory (TIF)

Muhammed Mutawakil, the chief administrator of TIF, participated in the training.

Theodore Ahiafor, the TIF shop manager, both participated in the training and served as a

technical advisor to participants. The TIF provided workspace, arc welders, small hand tools, an

electric grinder, metal benders and rollers, and a drill press.

Final Agenda

Day 1- Classroom curriculum by Gabriel Abdulai and Baba Issahaku on basic thresher

components, reading and interpreting written designs, measurement calculations, general

welding techniques and welding and shop safety.

Day 2- 6- Fabrication of threshers with instruction from Gabriel Abdulai and Baba Isshaku.

Day 7- Business training with Bernard Alando; building a thresher business, keeping records,

accessing customers, and customer service. Continued fabrication.

Day 8- Wrap-up of thresher fabrication and painting threshers. Workshop wrap-up.

Participants

Upper West participants were identified by MEDA, Upper East and Northern participants

were identified by CRS and MOFA extension agents. Three welders from the Tamale Implement

factory were also included. Participants worked in groups based on their region of origin with

one TIF welder joining each regional group.

Name Age Town Phone Region

Akolgo Samson Nyaaba 35 Bolga 200333669 Upper East

Holy Nyaaba 32 Bawku 246622678 Upper East

Naba Patrick Asaliya 45 Bolga 203191312 Upper East

Yakubu Issahaku 65 Nyankpala-Tolon 246168906 Northern

Rashid Fuseini 22 Saboba 505185770 Northern

Akara Koboumbo 35 Chereponi 540568616 Northern

Edward Akwetey 35 Nandom 208811339 Upper West

Abdul-Hakeem Abdul-Karim 32 Wa 207881206 Upper West

Imoro Donmuah Sufiyanu 37 Gbolo-Sissala 205353888 Upper West

Alhassan Eliyasu Tamale 242855961 Tamale Implement Factory

Gideon Azure Tamale 246935391 Tamale Implement Factory

Mohammed Fuseini Tamale 246566888 Tamale Implement Factory

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Final Budget

ADVANCE FUNDING Unit Cost Quantity Frequency Total (GHS) Total (USD)

Hotel 75 9 8 5,400 1,406

Meals 46 12 8 4,416 1,150

Transport (RT Wa -Tamale) 120 3 1 360 94

Transport (RT Chereponi - Tamale) 60 3 1 180 47

Transport ( RT Bolga -Tamale) 60 3 1 180 47

Use of Tamale Implement Factory 200 8 1,600 416

Engineer/ Teacher Salary 400 1 8 6,400 1,664

Business Development Specialist 400 1 1 400 104

Welder/ Teacher Salary 100 1 6 600 156

ADVANCE Total 19,536 5,084

ATT FUNDING Unit Cost Quantity Frequency Total (GHS) Total (USD)

Gas Powered with Robin motor 3,268 1 3,268 851

Gas Powered with Honda motor 2,068 1 2,068 539

Pedal Powered 1,294 1 1,294 363

ATT Total 6,630 1,753

SIL FUNDING Unit Cost Quantity Frequency Total (GHS) Total (USD)

Safety gear for participants (welding

gloves, helmets) 106.80 12 1,282 334

Extra tools for training (4 saws, 3

hammers, 9 chisels, 12 tape measures) 236 62

Two training manuals 25.20 12 302 79

Extra meals for trainers/TIF staff 23.50 12 8 2,260 589

Shirts and certificates 42 15 630 164

Payments to Tamale Implement Factory

Parts to make equip. functional 1,345 350

Power/electricity 750 195

Salaries for 3 TIF welders 1,200 313

75% cost share for participants next

thresher 1,200 10 12,000 3,125

SIL Total 20,005 5,211

Labor

The costs of the threshers listed in the budget above include only the material costs.

Labor for each thresher required approximately 150 man hours. As expertise and experience

increase, required man hours should decrease by approximately 10%. Improved access to

fabrication equipment and tools can also lead to decreased production time.

Deliverables

Business Training Manual, Bernard Alando- bound copy given to ADVANCE

08/08/2016

Design and Fabrication Training Manual, Gabriel Abdulai and Babba Issahaku- bound

copy given to ADVANCE 08/08/2016; this is being updated with final designs and a new

copy will be emailed to ATT and ADVANCE upon completion.

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Thresher operation and maintenance manual- currently being developed by Gabriel

Abdulai, will be given out with three threshers fabricated during training and will be

made available to fabricators for subsequent thresher sales.

Powerpoint on Business Training- will be emailed to ADVANCE and ATT

Powerpoint on Design and Fabrication- this is being updated with final designs and will

be emailed to ATT and ADVANCE upon completion.

A press release and photos have been sent to the Ghana News Agency in Tamale.

A documentary on the thresher training and thresher use in the targeted rural

communities is being completed by Catholic Relief Services and will become available in

approximately November 2016

A training video based on work done in this workshop will be completed by Kerry Clark

(SIL) and will become available by December 2016.

A training powerpoint for thresher end-users is being completed by Kerry Clark and will

be utilized by CRS during thresher distribution. This presentation will demonstrate best

management practices of threshing on site to retain plant residue and organic matter in

the field where the plants were grown.

Three threshers built at this workshop will be going to SIL research villages in the

Northern Region. Follow-up surveys by SIL social scientists assessing the impact of

threshers on soybean production will be done in 2018. The research villages are:

Gbalo, Chereponi District- receiving thresher with a Robin engine

Kpalsagu, Tolon District- receiving thresher with a Honday engine

Decheeni, Saboba District- receiving a pedal-powered thresher

Tamale Implement Factory Support

Kerry Clark, from SIL, is working with the TIF to build a website featuring their products

and their ability to host training events. We will seek to place the website on a free server so that

its continuing existence does not require cash infusion from the Factory. Additionally, Gabriel

Abdulai and SIL will assist the TIF with implementing new products or reworking existing

designs. Muhammed Mutawakil from TIF is preparing a list of agricultural NGOs in Ghana and

West Africa that we will contact with information about TIF and its capabilities as both a

training and production facility.

Participant Resources

Each workshop participant was interviewed at the onset of the training to determine

current product focus, size of operation, relative experience, and equipment, tools and materials

availability. All participants reported that they had access to electricity and an arc welder. Five

reported that they did not own a drill, an essential tool for thresher fabrication, but that they

could hire out the thresher piece (the concave) that needs to be drilled. Four of the nine also do

not have a metal grinder. One participant, Abdul-Hakeem, had designed and built threshers

previously. Hakeem was actually the inspiration for this training because on a visit to his shop,

SIL saw that the capability and desire to make threshers existed in Ghana but that there needed to

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be training on improved designs and fabrication methods to make a more durable and cost-

effective product. Two participants had previously built corn shellers, five had some experience

with agricultural products and two had never worked in agriculture prior to the training. All but

two reported that they could easily find appropriate materials in their areas of Ghana to construct

threshers. All but one believed that they could find people in their areas willing to purchase the

thresher design that the training focused on. Only the welder from Chereponi stated that he did

not think women would be interested in threshers and that they would continue to thresh using

sticks.

Workshop Evaluation

All participants were interviewed at the end of the training to determine the effectiveness

of the workshop and to evaluate the usefulness of the resources provided. All were very emphatic

that the training was extremely valuable. They were so happy to have been included that one

actually shed tears when talking about what it meant to him to receive a possible new source of

business. Some positive aspects of the training listed were:

Helpful attitude of the instructors

Having the TIF equipment available to them

The high quality of the materials bought for the threshers

Having food brought to them for snack and lunch. They all stated that this helped

provide much-needed energy during the construction process

Gave them a chance to upgrade their skills

Gave them knowledge on written designs

Practical experience building a thresher gives them confidence to do one on their

own

The business training provided valuable new insight on how to grow a business

and to price products for business sustainability

The only negative aspect of the training that any of them could think of was that the

Implement Factory lacked some necessary tools such as saws, compasses and scribes that would

have made the construction process easier. We also discussed the quality of the design, which all

thought was excellent. We did have one glitch in one design – the blower on the pedal powered

machine does not turn fast enough- but that is being addressed in the final design book that will

be distributed to all welders by CRS as soon as the engineer has completed it.

When I inquired if they would have attended if there had been a fee charged or if their

expenses had not been covered by USAID, they all stated that they would not have been able to

attend because the problem of lost wages added to the expense of the workshop would have been

too great. Before attending, they did not realize how valuable the training would be so that

unknown would also have been an impediment to paying their own way.

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Thresher Placement

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and SIL are teaming with RING to place two of the

threshers into rural communities where RING has ongoing projects. Sensitization and placement

will occur prior to the 2016 harvest. RING’s development model does not require cost share on

inputs, so that model will be followed for the threshers going to Decheeni and Kpalsagu. CRS

and RING will work together on community sensitization and identification of appropriate

beneficiaries. Placement will be through RING-organized Village Savings and Loan

Associations.

The third thresher, going to Gbalo, will be placed in accordance with the CRS

development model, which is to require cost share or buy-in from the beneficiary. The exact

methodology is still being determined by CRS. This thresher will also be placed prior to harvest,

2016. At the time of placement, the blacksmith-trainees in these three districts will accompany

CRS and deliver training to end-users on operation and maintenance and beneficiaries will also

receive an operations and maintenance manual. Additionally, CRS will deliver training on best

management practices for in-field threshing to retain plant residues and organic matter.

Thresher Research Project

SIL scientists are currently designing a research project that will include fabricator and

end-user follow-up from this training as well as introduce new research questions on the need for

formalized training vs informal information and design sharing, equipment utilization,

dissemination strategies, long-range effects of technical training and localized production, and

gender impacts of both the introduced technology and the methods by which the technology is

introduced/disseminated.

Evaluation of this training will continue at six months intervals for two years. Evaluation

will include identification of beneficiaries, how the technology reached them and how they

benefited from the technology/information. Benchmarks to be measured include: number of

machines produced and sold, changes in employment in the soybean value chain as a result of

the technology, changes in agricultural investment, public-private partnerships formed, and

number of agricultural firms operating more profitably. Within the SIL research villages,

monitoring and evaluation will include hectares of crops serviced, time savings or costs

compared to manual threshing, costs incurred or saved with thresher use and changes in farming

practices influenced by threshers. Additionally, post-harvest interviews with beneficiary groups

will determine the affordability of the technology, the durability and functionality of the design,

and the access that organizations and individuals had to the technology. WEAI and Soybean

Uptake Network Surveys in SIL Villages planned for 2016-2018 will help determine

experimental factors that were most important in increasing household soybean production and

utilization.

Social Media and Collaboration

The people involved with the Thresher Training Workshop formed a Whatsapp group

that allows us to trade photos, design ideas and progress reports. One participant went out on the

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final day and bought a smart phone so he could connect with the others in the group. Those with

Facebook have also formed new digital friendships and have been sharing experiences. Teaming

participants by region worked well and many new friendships and collaborations were formed as

a result of the training. Information on material sourcing and equipment availability was being

exchanged and offers of assistance and partnerships were common by the end of training.

Future Training/Workshops

This workshop served as a practice and prototype for trainings that SIL would like to

scale up and present throughout Africa. This opportunity helped us determine a reasonable

budget and feasibility of our timeline and educational methods. Our thresher designs were fine-

tuned during the training and will be further field tested this harvest season. In a country of 25

million people and a continent of 1.1 billion, we have reached just 12 welders with this training.

Although we believe that good information and designs will make their way to interested parties

via many informal paths, there is still a huge need to bring improved agricultural technology and

supporting information to both fabricators and end-users. To achieve this, we will continue to

seek funding support for an ongoing program to localize agricultural technology manufacturing

in Ghana and other interested nations. We also plan to branch out into design and fabrication

training for planters and other implements made with appropriate technologies that will support

increased soybean and other crop production in Africa.

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Photos

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Gabriel Abdulai, Designer and Instructor