Tubeveyor
More grain for the world’s rice bowls
Technosearch believes it can help boost food availability in developing countries by using a simple, inexpensive storage system to cut post-harvest losses of staple crops.
In a recent radio broadcast in Australia, International Rice Research Institute researchers pointed to supply problems that included static rice yields, increasing prices, climate change effects and the stunning statistic that 20-30 per cent of the annual rice crop, worldwide, is lost annually to vermin such as rats.
They said that if a sizeable inroad could be made into reducing the amount of rice eaten by vermin, enough rice to feed 220 million people - or a nation the size of Indonesia - could additionally be made available each year.
Many years ago the Australian research and development company, Technosearch, had two visits from representatives of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation regarding the Tubeveyor low cost, simple, easily maintained, vermin-proof grain elevator and storage system it had developed.
It could be installed in a village from an assembly kit, did not require electricity and, because there were few moving parts, could be maintained by people with fundamental mechanical skills.
Hand operated, the tubular elevator system can vertically (as opposed to angled conveyor belt systems) lift grain 3-4 metres above the ground into storages, thus making it much less accessible to pest attack.
Technosearch’s Tubeveyor system can also be connected to electricity supplies and scaled up.
After viewing a working model, the FAO requested 400 assemblies consisting of Tubeveyors, elevated storage bins and roofs for trials in India and Africa. Because Technosearch could not at the time raise the capital to meet this need and had other commitments, it was set aside. It appears that the need is now much greater than ever.
Technosearch has a scale, working model of the Tubeveyor grain elevator system which can be made available for evaluation.
