Alfred Chengula, co-founder of Imara Tech and innovator of the The Multi-Crop Thresher (MCT)

 For many smallholder farmers in Tanzania, hand threshing their crops is a way of life. To thresh grain by hand, it’s put on the ground and beaten with sticks until the cereal separates from the plant. It’s backbreaking work and often results in the cereal being contaminated by rocks and dirt, resulting in post-harvest losses. As a boy, there were times Alfred was unable to attend school because his family needed him at home to help with the threshing.

The Multi-Crop Thresher changes all of that. A modular, portable, multi-crop threshing machine, the MCT can be used with nine different types of grain and threshes 75 times faster than manual methods. In two minutes, one person using the MCT can thresh as much grain as ten people in three hours. In other words, the MCT reduces thirty man hours to two minutes. And the product comes out clean, meaning farmers recognize a greater profit. A Lean process is used to locally manufacture, assemble and sell the machines through either a Business to Consumer (B2C) or Business to Business (B2B) model. 

Alfred was able to bring his innovation to life through the help he got from Twende. Starting with one of their Creative Capacity Building workshops, Alfred was taken through the journey of making sure his idea was practical. He was provided space to build his prototype and connected with farmers to help test the machine and provide feedback. Once the prototype was ready, Twende helped connect Alfred with investors who helped him create a sustainable business.

Imara Tech is currently working on innovative ways to make the MCT available to all rural smallholders across Africa, with the vision of bringing prosperity, resilience and sustainability to every farm in Africa, enriching the lives of smallholder farmers by empowering communities with locally made productive-use technologies.