Kibaigwa Market

Hi everyone,

Although some of these pictures may be less than interesting to you, there is a team of guys working on engineering problems around grain handling. I'm trying to get a couple of them to write a blog, as well. They are great guys. Hey Matt and Bob, how is it going?

If you would want to join the team please send your interest to info@cheetahdevelopment.org

At the bottom is an explanation of what you are seeing here...

A scale for filling bags. See the weights on the right?

The cleaning line that cleans maize, removing dirt, cobs, dust and rocks.

Filling the cleaning machine from the top.

The French maker of the cleaning machine.

A closer view of the cleaning machine. It cleans the corn and then drops into the trough. From the trough it is lifted and dropped into the bag scale on the right. The long pipe going left to right carries the debris out of the building.

An actual page from the day's maize sales.

Lot's of debris in the corn! See all the pieces of cobs? That because the remove the kernels by beating the cobs with a stick.

The equipment distributor. - The other side of Africa!

If the corn is not dry enough, it is spread out here in the sun.

The inside of the market with the really heavy bags (200-250 pounds).

The chalkboard with the previous day's prices.

The maker of the scales.

The loading dock for buyers. Notice these are not bulk trucks!

On November 15th I visited the Kibaigwa market. It's famous across the country for setting up a real commodities market. It serves maize (and a few other grains) farmers in a region near Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania.

When farmers and buyers enter they see a blackboard with the previous day's prices. Then there is a small negotiation room where farmers and buyers can meet. Buyers look at the product and bid prices. There is security for the money exchange - all cash. Then farmers unload, optionally it is cleaned (only 30% opt to clean thinking they are somehow paid for debris but buyers pay less for uncleaned maize), then it is bagged and loaded on trucks. There is a weigh bridge to track inputs and outputs. Current price for maize is
for 377 shillings per kg. (1330 shillings per US$) A typical farmer in Tanzania may only sell a few bags as income for the whole year. By coming to this market they get about twice the going rate because there is no
middleman. On this day it was about 45,000 shillings per day. But that's less than US $35. Some of the better small village farmers might have 15 bags to sell. That's still less than $1 per day income.

Notice that grain is not handled in bulk. Everything is bagged. The bags are so heavy - over 200 pounds - that it takes three really muscular guys to lift one and then one guy carries it on his neck! I wanted to take a picture but that often offends people here.

This is great to see developing in Tanzania because it is connecting farmers to markets.