Post-harvest equipment: where the losses are, and what cleaning and grading actually costs you
Most agricultural tenders in our markets are written around post-harvest handling, not field machinery. Here is why.
Field machinery gets the attention; post-harvest equipment gets the tenders. Across the African markets we supply into, the recurring procurement is cleaning, grading and weighing - because that is where measurable loss happens between harvest and sale, and it is the stage a development programme or an agricultural authority can fund and point at.
Name the crop, not just the tonnage
This is the division where a nominal capacity misleads most often. The same machine rated at a given tonnes per hour behaves differently on paddy, maize, pulses and oilseed - different bulk density, different screen requirement, different moisture behaviour. A quotation against tonnage alone is a quotation against an assumption.
Our crop, grain and seed cleaning, grading and weighing equipment range is specified against the crop first and the rate second, which is the opposite of how most enquiries arrive.
Three questions that change the machine
- Moisture at intake. It decides whether drying belongs in the line and how the cleaning stage is set. Where it varies by season, say so - the machine can be specified for the range.
- What you are selling. Seed-grade cleaning and food-grade cleaning are different jobs with different acceptance criteria. Seed is the stricter of the two.
- Power. Mains or tractor PTO. In much of the market we supply, the answer is PTO for field-adjacent work and mains at a central store, and a buyer frequently needs both.
Where this joins the processing divisions
Cleaning and grading is the boundary between the field and the factory, which is why buyers establishing processing capacity usually quote this division alongside agro processing equipment and, where the output is a packaged product, the food processing plant division. Sizing one without the other produces a bottleneck at the join.
Supplier questions for agricultural equipment
- Have they built for your crop before, and can they say what screen or setting they used?
- Is the machine supplied with the screens for your crop, or are those extra?
- What spare wear parts should ship with the machine? For this equipment that is a real question, not an upsell.
- What is the throughput at your moisture content, not at the catalogue figure?
Tell us the crop, the tonnes per hour and whether the power is mains or PTO. Request a quotation, or see the agricultural machinery range.