April 3, 2017

AflaSTOP Portable Grain Dryer Named Top Five Postharvest Technology

EasyDry M500 Wins Fourth Place Out of Hundreds of Entries

, a portable grain dryer developed through ASI and ACDI/VOCA’s project, won fourth place and $4,000 at the All Africa Postharvest Technologies and Innovation Challenge.

The challenge, held at the 1st All Africa Postharvest Congress and Exhibition from March 28—31, 2017, showcased the best emerging postharvest technologies and innovations—all in testing or market-ready stages—with the potential for scale-up in Africa.

First prize was awarded to UC-Davis for their Moisture Card; second prize to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) for their ; and third prize also to IITA for

Because of its win, the EasyDry M500 team had the opportunity to present to more than 150 people and pitch their innovation to investors in attendance. As a top ten entry, the EasyDry M500 will also be profiled in a special edition booklet published by the 1st All Africa Postharvest Congress and Exhibition.

The University of Nairobi hosted the event, in partnership with a consortium of Kenyan universities, research and development organizations, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, and the World Food Preservation Center..

The EasyDry M500 services smallholder farmers and works by lowering maize moisture from 20 percent to 13.5 percent in three hours, with the capacity to dry three 500 kg batches per day in one location. It has been piloted in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda; but the technology is open source and available for commercial adoption.

Recently viewers of the nightly news, broadcast by the Kenya Television Network (KTN), got to see the EasyDry M500 in action. A special program called “The Next Frontier�? featured the machine’s ability to dry maize to minimize losses caused by aflatoxin.

For more on the EasyDry M500, visit

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