Low Cost Extrusion Plant

On November the 13th the Food and Agricultural Institute at the University of Lille presented its work to date on the development of a low cost extrusion technology and the progress made on its potential application in emergency situations. The Institute expects to be able to use the technology (which can produce blended flours from local products) at very low cost (expected equipment cost of only $10,000) and on a small scale (capacity of equipment is around 30-50 kg/hour) at farm level in western countries or at camp level in emergency situations.

The technology is already being used in development projects, e.g. Vietnam and Peru. The Institute is working with other partners to develop certain aspects of this technology, i.e. optimising nutritional content of extruded foods, making use of local food produces and minimising costs. Project management factors are also being addressed in the project. e.g. ensuring scope for sustainable activity by local implementing partners.

Application and uptake of this technology in emergency camp situations could yield at least three major benefits:

• it would allow conversion of locally available food into nutritious pre-cooked products on the basis of agency specifications.
• pre-cooking of foods at camp level would also help conserve scarce fuel and be less wasteful of energy than cooking by individual households
• the technology could benefit the local economy during and after the emergency. This would require training of local operators, transfer of skills and initiation of small industry projects.

More details can be obtained Dominique Bounie IAAL, USTL Batiment C6, 59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France, Tel: +33 (0) 3 2043 49 21, Fax: +33 (0) 3 20 43 44 86, E-mail: dominique.bounie@univ-lillel.fr