MAFUTA MALI OIL PRESS

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The intention was:

Cordaid supports the Rural agency for community development and Assistance (RACIDA) to enhance community resilience to disaster risk and climate changes in Mandera County (Kenya) through community managed disaster risk reduction. The project consisted of three components: (i) Water and sanitation (ii) Agricultural input services and livelihood diversification iii) Natural resource management. An intervention related to agricultural input services and livelihood diversification was the provision of four oil seed presses to extract oil from sunflower, simsim seeds and other oil seeds. The filter produces clear and nutritious cooking oil ready for sale or consumption. The goal of this intervention was to reduce the time, transport and processing costs for the farmers since the only oil seed press was 100 km away from the area where the farmers live.

The course of action was:

Four organized farmers groups in Rhamu Dimtu have been identified, trained on operation and maintenance and provided with the machines. The machine has saved locals time to travel to Mandera plus the convenience of accessing service close-by.

The result was:

The result was that the grinding costs with the local machines were higher than the grinding cost of the machine in Mandera. Therefore a cost benefit analysis showed that farmer’s net income without the machines close-by was Ksh 110,400 per season, and with the local machines Ksh 107,600 per season.

The lesson was:

Key lesson learnt was that if cost benefit analysis was done before the commencement of the project, other options would have been explored. This was because the manual machines are too slow. It was good for individual household use, but not communal use. For instance, it takes 20 days for one machine to process produce of one farmer, if they are fifty farmers, it will take months. Therefore, purchase of the machine for the said purpose was not cost effective. One large diesel/petrol engine run machine would have been better for the community. Use of solar energy would have even been better. Cordaid now only supports this kind of investments if a proper cost benefit analysis is available.

Further: