Special Events
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Global Harmony
Concert
to Benefit CTI
(Free!)
Saturday, February
7th: 3pm and 7:30pm
Sunday,
February 8th: 3pm
Emcee: Tom Crann
(All Things Considered, Minnesota Public Radio)
North Como Presbyterian
Church965
Larpenteur Avenue West, Roseville(No RSVP necessary.) |
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Post Harvest
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Breadfruit Goes Commercial
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"While numerous traditional methods have been
developed to process and store breadfruit, this easy-to-grow, nutritious
carbohydrate fruit will never become more
than a locally important crop unless economical,
reliable methods of extending
its shelf-life and commercially
processing it are developed."
- Diane Ragone, Director of the Breadfruit Institute, Hawaii
In
1996, Inette Durandis, Director of the Committ ee on Development (COD) of the Haitian Methodist
Church asked CTI to help her
commercialize breadfruit, saying "Why can't we make bread and other food stuffs
from this fruit which is so abundant in Haiti? My farmers are tearing up their coffee trees
to plant wheat for a cash crop, but by the third year the land has washed away
and now they have nothing. If we could
make breadfruit a cash crop it would be a Godsend."
CTI
and the Hennepin Avenue United
Methodist Church
accepted this challenge. In spite of a
civil war, numerous hurricanes, political embroilments and several false
starts, CTI and Hennepin Avenue UMC established a process, conducted taste
surveys, and selected the primary equipment necessary to commercialize breadfruit.
A
company called SATAG (Antillean Food
Processing Corporation) was incorporated into the project, and they wrote a
proposal for start-up funding. CTI
volunteers tested recipes and created a commercial product that has much to
offer the people of Haiti:
· A highly nutritious snack food at a very competitive price.
· A new industry for Haiti that would employ 180 rural
people to
harvest and dry the breadfruit.
· A new business that would employ 32 persons on a one shift basis.
· A locally-produced cereal that would replace imported
cereals.
· A potentially exportable product.
The Board of Dir ectors
of the Banque Nationale
de Credit of Haiti
met with SATAG Incorporators, Ms. Durandis (COD), and Fred Joseph in
December,
2008 to discuss the Breadfruit Project.
There, Board members munched on the breadfruit snack that the
CTI/Hennepin Avenue UMC team had processed in South Beloit, WI
the previous week. The product was well
received and the bank committed to disburse the necessary funds "in time
for sales in September 2009." We look forward to the public
production of
the CTI designed breadfruit snack later this year!
See the full article here.
(Thanks
to the project team: Hank Garwick, Project Leader, George Ewing, Technical
Director, Dave Elton, Drying
Process, Christine Nowakowski, Senior Scientist, General Mills and many others
including American Extrusion personnel.) |
Collaborations with the Indian Institute of Technology
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Potato Processing
Throughout the last two years,
CTI volunteers Shiv Murty, Steve Laible,
and Nancy Laible have been in
contact with Prof. Narendra Shah at the Center for Technology Alternatives for
Rural Areas (CTARA) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay to discuss the
rural community needs and potential solutions in the region near Mumbai.
A major need in the area is to
preserve the potato harvest in a way that will generate income. To that end, a project to disseminate small-scale
equipment to make "processed potato products" was initiated at CTARA. The
project involves developing equipment for making puffed potato cubes which can
be consumed or sold at market. To help streamline the manufacturing process,
CTI offered its potato peeling and slicing equipment from West
Bengal. After a visit to CTI
 volunteer Bibek Ray's potato-processing facilities in Gohaldanga, West Bengal, Prof. Shah and his team decided to purchase
the peeler and slicer units for testing. The units will be fabricated in West Bengal and shipped to Mumbai by March where they
will be placed with a local entrepreneur for field testing. It is everyone's hope that the field tests
will prove the equipment useful in streamlining the production of these
income-generating puffed potato cubes.
Launch of a "CTI
Fellowship" at IIT Bombay
CTI has signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay to offer a fellowship for one Masters
in Technology student to undertake a two year program in Technology and Development
at the Center for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA). The
fellowship will be offered for five years beginning in June 2009.
Funds for this "CTI Fellowship"
at CTARA were underwritten by long time CTI supporters Gale and Shivram
Murty (IIT Bombay alumnus). For more than twenty five years, CTI
has worked
with in-country partner organizations to disseminate technology
developed by
our dedicated volunteers. With the launch of this program, Shiv and Gale
note,
"We hope that CTI's investment in people will be just as beneficial in
disseminating our technology. As the "CTI Fellows" complete their
studies and
join various organizations, their awareness and knowledge of CTI will
enable
them to integrate our technology solutions into other related programs."
Over time this program may be extended to
other parts of the world with several CTI Fellows around the world
making an
even greater impact in alleviating hunger and poverty.
(CTARA started a new Masters in Technology program in
Technology and Development in July 2007.
For more information about CTARA, please see their website.
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Pearl Millet Thresher Update
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We are exited to bring everyone up to date on the recent
advances in our threshing program. Since last we reported, our Leary Thresher
has logged many miles and seen many a millet seed. Here is what has happened...
In late October, Erv Lentz
sent our thresher, and then followed it to the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) test site in Tifton,
GA for field trials. At Tifton,
USDA scientist Dr. Jeff Wilson and his team put Erv and the thresher through a
series of tests designed to establ ish its productivity and the quality of the
product it produced. We were also interested in determining the ergonomics of
the design and the robustness of its construction. Over the course of several
days, Dr. Wilson determined that our design was good, but had some durability
and ergonomic issues needed to be resolved. He also established that while the rate of
production was acceptable, he had some concerns with the quality of the seeds
(percentage of broken seeds) winnowed. It
is not well understood what is an acceptable level of broken seeds in rural
areas of Mali;
this concern was left in the "to be determined" file. Given this B+ grading the machine was crated
up and sent to the engineers at OneLab Initiative in Columbus, OH.
OneLab Initiative is a group of Battelle engineers and
technical people who have put their knowledge and expertise at CTI's disposal
on this thresher project. Lead by Reade
Harpham, these folks are redesigning the unit to improve its durability and
ergonomics. They will also be retrofitting the thresher to include a winnowing
fan in the basic design. Once Reade and his band of merry thresher engineers
have completed their work, the new, freshly minted Leary Thresher will be
shipped to Bamako, Mali for field trials. There it
will be joined by CTI volunteer Steve Clarke, who with collaboration from more
Malian friends of CTI, will determine what further modifications must be made
before we have a production ready thresher.....but more on Steve's work in a
later addition!
CTI is proud to include creative thinkers like Jeff Wilson
and Reade Harpham into our family of contributors. Many thanks guys!
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General Mills Science and Technology Transfer Initiative
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General Mills has
launched a project with CTI to refine the screen dehuller under the auspices of their newly announced Science
and Technology Transfer Initiative. Under this Initiative, high-level
engineers, scientists, and researchers from General Mills donate their time,
expertise, and even their laboratories to support the work of organizations
like CTI. The engineers working on this project (Tom Smith, Terry
Reishus, Fred Hemker, Jim Weinstein, Dean Funk, and Bernhard
Van Lengerich) have begun examining CTI's screen dehuller and offering
their expertise to CTI co-founder George Ewing
regarding lower cost alternatives to threshing and decortication. The next step is to determine what prototypes
should be created and what changes should be made to the screen huller. We're excited for this opportunity to draw
upon a different pool of knowledge and experience to hone this design into a
field-ready prototype.
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CTI Receives Renewed Approval from USAID and Charities Review Council
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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has
renewed CTI's approved status as a Private Voluntary Organization.
See our listing on their website here.
CTI's Fiscal Year 2008
results have been updated at the Charities Review Council website and we have
passed the test again. To see details, click on the logo at the bottom of our home page. | |
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