A motorized groundnut thresher is reducing drudgery for women farmers in rural Nigeria. Introduced in 2015, over 50 threshers have already been distributed to farmer groups and cooperatives. Recently at the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) fair, Chief Audu Innocent Ogbeh, Federal Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nigeria, was impressed by its demonstration and ordered four more units to benefit women in Cross River State.
Nigeria produces 7% and 29% of the world’s and Africa’s total groundnut production respectively. In West and Central Africa, groundnut is a key cash crop for smallholder farmers. While on-farm operations are primarily carried out by men, post-harvest operations are mostly done by women and children. Shelling groundnut (for seeds, grains or both) is not only an expensive operation, it eats into a substantial chunk of women’s valuable time.
