The final thing :)

I hope to upload some of my new concepts soon.

I have decided from my new concepts to look at retrofitting  existing container lids with vacuum seals. using the pump these will create vacuum store for the maize.

This is a useful table I found of the cost of existing products and how long they take to become airtight. I have decided it should try and cost less than $20/year/tonne and take less than 2 weeks to kill the insects inside.

Storing food

I have been researching existing storage methods used. The one I like best is the use of Hermetic store. This is where the an air tight container is used to suffocate the insects and pests inside  the container by starving them of oxygen.

In metal silos a candle is lit to use up the oxygen faster. This is a very effective method but can only be done in metal containers.

Plastic bags are used to line sacks of grain and tied tightly to create an airtight seal. This is a fairly expensive method but is very popular and it has recently been funded heavily by the Gates foundation.

One way seal for vacume pump

This is a very good example of how easy a one way seal can be to make
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-a-One-Way-Check-Valve-For-Cheap/

Finding an expert

I have emailed a few student volunteer organisations to find students or project workers who have worked in Africa and I can consult on conditions:

1) SVA - http://www.studentvolunteersabroad.org/

2) Engineers Without Boarders

I have also messaged a few professional bodies who are involved in projects with rural farmers:

3) Oxfam 

4) Farm Africa www.farmafrica.org

I have also posted one of my ideas to an investment page to try and get some feedback on my ideas.

http://arc.peacecorpsconnect.org/view/2429/flexible-hermetic-store-for-rural-farmers

2) delicious.com

2) Using delicious.com

when I saved the original articular delicious told me 9 other people had saved it and directed me to articles that I might be interested in.

Direction

From my research I have chosen to look at.

- To improve the Post Harvest Losses experienced when storing
- Maize crop
- East Sub Saharan Africa
- Reduce damage from micro-organism and pests

1) key things to research

1) key things I want to research

- main reason harvests are lost

- countries most affected (the environment in the countries)

-  harvest cycle, when losses occur? what time of year?

- crops that are most effected by post harvest losses and therefore have a greater need/market.

- existing solutions, what works? what doesn't work?

Main areas of loss

I have started by looking at what causes most of the post harvest losses during harvest in Africa.

A report from the world Bank had research into the main causes of food loss.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/MissingFoods10_web.pdf

I chose to do the Scotsman Project that aims to reduce Post harvest losses in Africa. this is a very wide issue that effects lots of different countries, environments and has lots of different problems to look at.

I started my repurchaser by googling the article that the brief was originally based on. (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/aug/22/weather-stations-agricuture-data-africa)

From this I did 2 things.

1) picked out key things I wanted to research
2) saved it to Delicious

Delicious showed me 9 other people had saved this article, It also suggested a number of other articles I may be interested in. After checking out a few of these articles I found a few people on delicious who were following similar topics to me.