by M. Balaganessin, The Hindu
The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University – Agricultural Engineering College and Research Institute has developed a new equipment for cleaning raw tamarind of seed as part of value-addition in marketing the produce.
The equipment, called metal roll de-seeder, involves a simple principle for shearing the fruit which is the key step for separating the seed from it. A variable speed roller, which is an auto adjustable component, adjusts itself according to the size and shape of the fruit.
All a farmer has to do is to drop tamarind, fruit by fruit, into the machine. It separates the seed from the fruit instantly.
“A large number of women are involved in separating the seed from the fruit, particularly in districts like Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri where the tamarind yield is high,” says N. Pandian, a research scholar who has been conducting various trial for improving the efficiency of the equipment.
“This is not the end of it and we have planned to improvise it,” says K. Ramaswamy, Dean of the college. At present, the efficiency of the de-seeder is being explained to farmers visiting the college and their suggestions will be taken into consideration.
Mr. Ramaswamy says the manual separation of the seeds is not only labour-intensive but is also suspect from the point of view of hygiene. “While only 3 kg can be separated per hour through manual operation, the device can handle 60 kg an hour,” he says.
De-weeding forms the middle part of the three-phase programme implemented for value-addition. “We adopt de-hulling in the first phase and packing in the third phase – using two other machines separately,” he says.
In the conventional method, workers separate the pod and the pulp by thrashing the produce using a stick, again, an unhygienic procedure.
Source: The Hindu