Threshing is a key part of agriculture that involves removing the seeds or grain from plants (for example rice or wheat) from the plant stalk. In the case of small farms, threshing is done by beating or crushing the grain by hand or foot, and requires a large amount of hard physical labour. A simple thresher with a crank can be used to make this work much easier for the farmer. In most cases it takes two people to work these: one person to turn the crank and the other to feed the grain through the machine. These threshers can be built using simple materials and can improve the efficiency of grain threshing. They can also be built with pedals, or be attached to a bicycle, so that the person operating it can simply pedal to reduce the work even more and make threshing faster.
Threshers can be made in a number of ways using simple tools, and can be used in the harvesting of maize/corn, rice, wheat, sorghum, pearl millet, and any other grain or seed that must be separated from a stalk. The attachment of a thresher to a pedal-system can be built with basic materials. Two versions are the pedal-powered thresher which is built as one piece and the attachment to a bicycle for a regular thresher with a crank.[1] Pedal-powered threshers have been suggested or made available to farming communities by governmental or non-governmental organizations. It should be remembered that there are some disadvantages to these threshers and their impact in the specific region should be researched before being suggested.