Hulling and whitening

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Hulling and whitening are traditionally done by women, using pestles and mortars.

To produce hulled fonio for sale, the women pound and then sieve the grain three or four times.They will then pound it once more to make whitened fonio.

Traditional hulling has a very low throughput, with each woman hulling between 1 and 2 kg/h.

Mechanisation of fonio hulling is often viewed as a priority among women.

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Traditional hulling and withening with a pestle and mortar (© T.Ferré, Cirad)

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Washing and removing sand

After whitening, the fonio has to be cleaned to produce a quality product. The bran and other foreign bodies such as sand are traditionally removed by repeated washing, which makes this an extremely time-consuming and tedious operation

Washing of the fonio (© J-F Cruz, Cirad)

Degritting of the fonio (© P. Thaunay, Cirad)

The very difficult nature of manual hulling/whitening and traditional desanding operations has led some populations to gradually abandon fonio cultivation at the risk of seeing this cereal disappear in many regions.