Development and Performance Testing of Rice Thresher for Fogera Hub Farmers in Ethiopia

Abstract

Traditional paddy threshing is still carried out by man-power, and animal trampling in the rural village of Fogera district in the Amhara region of north-west Ethiopia. This paper was aimed to reduce paddy losses, minimize drudgery activities, and avail the technology in this area. The developed rice thresher also protects the paddy from mud mixing for further prevention of fast wearing and damaging of rubber roll during rice milling. The 3D modeling and working drawing are prepared by using CATIA software for fabrication and testing purposes. The paddy thresher is designed to separate paddy from panicles without damaging the stalk of rice. The research seeks to develop a power-operated rice thresher that can be manufactured by local manufacturers, and accessed by all small-holder rice producing farmers in Ethiopia. Components of the thresher were designed, fabricated, and assembled from the available materials in the local market. The experimental test in this study indicated that the threshing capacity of the designed paddy thresher is approximately 128 kg/h using two labor participation. Considering the unthreshed loss, drum loss, and broken grains, the average efficiency of the machine noted 96.6%.