There are three common scales or levels of processing: domestic, village and factory. Before looking at village-scale processing, it is worth considering some of the limitations of domestic and factory-scale processing.
Domestic processing is limited to small-scale production and can be of variable quality. It is suitable for the immediate family with a little extra capacity for local market or roadside sales. Because domestic processing cannot take advantage of powered machinery, except where an electrical supply is available, it cannot have much influence on the community.
Factory processing and production has the potential to transform a society from mainly subsistence farmers to factory labourers. The community as a whole often does not share the profits, however, and the traditional lifestyle is lost. The labourers must spend the money they earn on food and clothing and housing is often poor. The attractions of the factory approach are that large amounts of food can be produced and processed and the national economy can be improved by sales on the world market of such products as coffee and cocoa. If factories are too big or not well planned, massive investments may be lost and local lifestyles, cultures and traditions can be badly and often irretrievably affected. Village processing is the alternative approach. At village level, the addition of machines for production offers many advantages:
With production at village level, local communities can be made more prosperous without substantially changing their cultures.
Machines reduce the danger as well as the tedium of processing tasks, often providing much higher quality products. Rice is easily husked by machine, while a hand-operated tool requires very hard work and often results in high losses because of the number of broken grains. Without powered machines or tools, it probably would not be worth growing rice in many areas. The same is true for such crops as coffee, cashew and tea. Cleaning crops with a sieve is another difficult process to carry out by hand, whereas a cheap mass-produced sieve that is either shaken by hand or driven gives a precisely sized product every time.
There are many situations where post-harvest losses can be reduced. A properly dried and stored product such as grain in a steel silo can last for years with little deterioration, whereas a damp, exposed heap of grain will usually deteriorate within a few days. Machines that save time and produce extra food for those who use them can also provide the opportunity to grow cash crops.
