Project Agrow

NCIIA is pleased to welcome Project Agrow, Villgro Innovations Foundation’s My Idea competition winner.

 

Globally, 2.2 million children die of malnourishment every year. In response, the World Health Organization has developed a peanut butter-based health food formula (Ready to Use Therapeutic Food, or RUTF) that helps children quickly recover their health. RUTF is now used in a number of countries with severe malnutrition problems, like India. Several government health care centers have been set up in India to prepare RUTF for rural populations, and there is a need for fresh peanut butter.

 

This team is developing a low cost, manually operated machine that enables de-cortication and de-husking of raw peanuts to deliver clean peanut kernels. The goal is to use this device in rural government health care centers for the preparation of RUTF formula.

 

Additionally, most peanuts are sold raw by farmers to vendors, who then convert them to kernels and sell them at a much higher margin. This machine will allow farmers to process raw peanuts themselves and sell them directly in the market.