Full Belly Project - Nut Sheller

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Open a box, find a factory. Follow some instructions, mix some concrete. But it all together. Turn the handle. It's very little work, even for older people. Each mini-factory comes with enough metal parts to make 4 machines. Then you can get a local welder to make you up some more. This machine will process . . . . .

Peanuts: Every year, in Africa alone, women spend about 4 billion hours shelling peanuts by hand. For many of the poorest families, peanuts are the only protein they can afford. For many they a crop of choice to take to market, but they have little value in the shell. And a sun-dried, unroasted peanut in the shell is much tougher than the roasted-in-the-shell kind wealthy people buy in the supermarket. 1 kilo or a little more than 2 lbs an hour is a normal shelling rate. And women, through their skin, can absorb the very toxic aflatoxins that can develop on the outside of the shell.

The Full Belly Project's award winning (Popular Mechanics, MIT) Universal Nut Sheller does peanuts at the rate of 50 kg/hr (120 lbs/hr). Adjustable for any size of nut. Because of their softer shell, aflatoxin contaminated peanuts tend to pass through unshelled for easy sorting.

Full Belly founder Jock Brandis with President Jimmy Carter at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia

Coffee: You know the story You dry your beans in the fruit. Then you send them to the mill to be cleaned. It's amazing how many 'disappear' in the mill. And you are never sure if the ones you get back are the ones you brought in. And the shipping and milling costs. Worse still, you try and do it yourself by hand. Time to get a Universal Nut Sheller, but with a piece of rubber truck inner tube stretched over the inner turning part. If you dry your coffee in the coat and remove the bean later, this machine will do it on site.

Jatropha: Your oil press wears out way too soon because your farmers are flailing the pods on the ground and the seeds`are dirty? It takes three times as much time to open the pods than to pick? The economics of jatropha are looking dubious? Then join the ranks of Mali Biocarburant, Gota Verde and Jatropha Pepenye and make your own hand cranked hulling machines. 200 kg/hr (450lbs/hr) with 100% efficiency.

Shea: Does your shea business depend on old women, crouching on the ground, cracking shells (and fingers) between two rocks? It's hard to reconcile that misery just so wealthy women far away can have smoother skin. Try our standard Universal Nut Sheller. 200kg/hr (450lbs/hr) Shells all but the flat sided 'twin' nuts.