Peanut Threshing and Shelling Machines for Community-Based Peanut Enterprises in Developing Countries

摘要

The Philippine peanut value chain is being constrained by the lack of suitable and effective postharvest mechanization technologies. Peanut stripping and peanut shelling are two of the most labor intensive postharvest in the peanut production chain asit is still performed manually by the local peanut farmers in the Philippines. Imported machines are not designed and configured for local varieties and the existing farm conditions of the country, thus mechanical peanut stripper and mechanical peanut shelter, were developed and locally fabricated using locally available materials. These were tested using the BPI-PN9 variety which is widely cultivated in the northern part of the Philippines. The mechanical peanut stripper is used to separate the peanutpods from the vines, blow-off the dust, stacks and foreign materials, and sort the stripped pods into three sizes. It has an output stripping capacity up to H6kg/hr, stripping efficiency of 93% and mechanically damaged pods of 0.4%. The developed peanutsheller-sorter could be used to free kernels from peanut pods, blow-off the shells, and sort the kernels into three sizes. It has passed all the Philippine Agricultural Engineering Standards (PAES) for peanut shelter with an average shelling capacity of95 kg/hr, shelling efficiency and shelling recovery of 98.1%, itnshelled loss and broken kernels of 2% and an output purity of 98.1%. Economic analysis shows that the peanut stripper and the peanut shelter machines developed are profitable investments for villageOscale peanut farmers enterprises with a BCR of two years (4 cropping seasons) and 14 months (2 cropping seasons) and IRR of 51 percent and 120%, respectively.