Implemented by: Flemming
Nielsen (FACT/Banana
hill) (2009)
Main findings:
Three tests of harvesting rates were carried out; Two at
Primero
de Maio and one at Metambo.
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The first tests consisted of two farmers of about 25 and
45 years of age harvesting Jatropha for fifteen minutes from a two year
old hedge with moderate fruit bearing. The fruits were decorticated on
the go and a total of 1.5 kg wet seeds were ready in 15 minutes. It is
equivalent to 3 kg/h per person. The farmers said that the speed of
picking was slightly higher than what they usually do.
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The second test included the same two persons as the first
test. They spent 14 minutes picking Jatropha from one hedge.
Decortification was done afterwards and took 26 minutes. The total
harvesting time of 40 minutes resulted in 2.46 kg wet seeds. It is
equivalent to 1.8 kg/h per person. Without the decortication 5.3 kg/h
per person were harvested.
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The third test included two women of around 25 years of
age. They harvested Jatropha for 12 minutes and spent 46 minutes
decorticating the 2 kg. About 70% of the fruits were black while 30%
were yellow. The picking rate including decortication is 1 kg/h per
person. Without decortication it is 5 kg/h per person.
The farmers said that they usually pick the fruits first and
decortify when they are anyhow sitting together.
To summarise the findings:
These figures are at the low end of figures from the
literature. A
reason may be that the hedges are young and have relatively few
fruits and that the poor pruning practise makes it difficult to reach
fruits on long branches.
Considering that the major time spend on harvesting the seeds
is
for decortication we should look into the feasibility of simple
mechanical decortifiers. It could make Jatropha more
attractive/beneficial to the farmers. This is particularly important
because of the time of the labour peaks as discussed later in this
document.
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