| Upcoming Events
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Tuesday, September 30th
5:30 pm
Microfinance Seminar
by Gulbahor Makhkamova
Deputy Director of IMON Int'l.
at
Humphrey Institute, U of M
Friday, October 24th
7:00 pm
Benefit Concert for Lutheran Aid for Medicine Bangladesh (LAMB) and CTI
at
Nativity Lutheran Church in St. Anthony
(Tickets: $10.00)
Monday, October 27th
5:30 pm
Microfinance Seminar
Co-sponsored by CTI and the Minnesota International Center at Cowels Auditorium
University of Minnesota Monday, November 3, 20085:00 pmVolunteer Recognition
Event
University of Minnesota
St. Paul Campus |
Sign up for the
Post Harvest
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| A Measure of Hope |
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A Note from New Executive Director, Roger Salway
For the past two years, I have been involved with CTI as a volunteer on the various committees and latterly as Vice Chair of the Board. Last week, the Board of Directors voted to appoint me Executive Director of CTI and we have put together some IMPERATIVES aimed at increasing the measurable impact that CTI is making for the "bottom billion" of the earth's poorest people. 
This week the UN General Assembly is meeting to review the Millennium Development Goals, but the world has changed radically since they were announced in 2000; the World Bank just raised the count on global poverty to 1.4 billion people. (To read the full article, click here.)
The big difference between a poor Asian household and an equally poor African one is hope, as incomes in China and India are rising faster and more surely than African incomes, as was reported in a New York Times article this week by Paul Collier "Hope makes a difference in people's ability to tolerate poverty; parents are willing to sacrifice as long as their children have a future."
Our top priority at CTI is provide credible hope in rural areas where subsistence is a daily challenge and where our post harvest food processors and water purification technologies can work side by side with other providers of hope.
We will continue, with your generous help, to share with you examples of how our technology is helping the anti-poverty efforts Your CTI is making, focused on the 60 or so countries - most of them in Africa - that are persistently poor and persistently slow growing.
Roger Salway |
| CTI Expands Work in Mali |
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CTI activity in Mali, West Africa, is on the rise. As a result of the recommendation from Dr. Jeff Wilson, USDA pearl millet geneticist and USAID-funded INTSORMIL collaborator based in Georgia (US), ICRISAT has incorporated CTI into its Gates Foundation grant to improve the yields and profitability of rainfed cereals, especially pearl millet and sorghum, in West  Africa with special emphasis on empowering women. This is a natural fit given ICRISAT's focus on pre-harvest production improvements and CTI's expertise in post-harvest food processing technologies (a role primarily played by women in Africa). Dr. Camille George, University of St. Thomas School of Engineering faculty member and CTI Board member, visited Mali in early summer to discuss the project first-hand with ICRISAT scientist Eva Weltzien and observe village-level millet threshing.
Based on positive peer review of CTI's pearl millet threshing-cleaning design options by Dr. Wilson last spring as well as further tests currently underway by Dr. Lloyd Rooney at Texas A&M, CTI expects to conduct rigorous and participatory field tests of advanced prototypes, built by Ohio-based and new CTI partner Battelle Institute, in Mali in early 2009 with ICRISAT, Malian colleagues and local farmers. According to international millet scientists, CTI is emerging as the leader in developing post-harvest solutions for pearl millet.
CTI's work in West Africa started several years ago in Mali, a land-locked country typical of the semi-arid tropical Sahelian zone immediately south of the Sahara and home to Timbuktu. Activity began with the introduction and field testing of CTI's hand-powered peanut-grain grinders, thanks to collaboration with Iowa-based NGO Medicine for Mali (M4M). M4M distributed grinders as a revenue-generating service in eight villages. Despite occasional glitches, women users have validated the CTI mechanical grinder which they say produces a superior creamy peanut paste with less effort and in much less time compared to the traditional mortar-and-pestle system. It has also been shown to successfully grind other staple food crops in Mali such as millet, sorghum and cowpeas. Grinders are also being evaluated by colleagues at the Ag School, thanks to Belco Tamboura. |
| Wooden Grinder Update |
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Our intrepid reporters have a wooden grinder alert!!!
Jerry LaGra reports from Guyana that he and his team have built a wooden grinder out of a native hard wood called Purple Heart. Jerry indicated that the carpenter that made the grinder has above average skills and easily copied the oak grinder that CTI sent as a model (see photo).  The metal pieces that comprise the working parts of the grinder were also sent and incorporated into this Purple Heart grinder. Fearing concerns about contamination, Jerry modified the design to include a stainless steel liner for the parts of the grinder that touched the food. Jerry admits that this was a defensive decision because Purple Heart is already widely used for food bowls and other serving dishes. Further work will be required on durability, leakage, etc. before the concept can receive a full endorsement, but to date the status is positive.
We have not received any reports on the horizontal axis wooden grinder and the lower cost vertical axis wooden version which have been shipped to Zambia. We will issue another Flash Alert when we have more information.
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| CTI Snippets |
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Here are some highlights of recent CTI activities:
- As a result of the CTI presentation at the Walker Art Center's "Solutions for the Other 90%," contact was made with an Engineering Director from the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. After visiting our shop he indicated that Battelle was establishing an outreach program to partner Battelle with not for profit organizations such as CTI. Following his return to Columbus, he has contacted us with specific proposals, and CTI is aggressively following up on this lead.
- Mozart Adevu, Chair of the Moringa Association of Ghana and Continental Director for United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), visited CTI at the end of August to tour the shop and develop a Moringa business plan. A series of action items were developed and we look forward to exploring further work with both organizations including the possibility of expanding our Moringa activities into Liberia.
- CTI is cosponsoring a Senior Design project with University of St. Thomas senior Engineering students to design a processing system for breadfruit. This project will encompass all conversion steps from peeling to grinding, and the design requirements of each step will be examined so that a world wide process can be finalized. Two other co-sponsors, the National Tropical Botanical Garden (Hawaii) and the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee (Madison, WI) will be supplying breadfruit varietals, botanic support and access to an in-country test site. The project will be completed by five students and technical evaluation will be done by Associate Professor Dr. Camille George and Dr. Don Weinkauf, Dean of UST's School of Engineering.
We are proud to confirm that CTI volunteers George Ewing, Ed Galle and Dave Elton will be mentoring these five students as they complete their design project. Our volunteers will not be advancing any of the project ideas but will be available to lend their years of experience and knowledge to the students as they complete the project. Many thanks guys for continuing the CTI tradition of technology advancement.
- Thanks to the efforts of Board member Marschall Smith, a short promotional video is being produced that will be put on our website, on YouTube, shown at presentations and used to introduce foundations to CTI as we solicit grants.
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