A wonder wood splitter exhibited at farmer’s expo

 The Balfor continental 416 Joy machine on display during the expo. Photo/Anthony Wesaka

What you need to know:

  • More than 90 percent of Ugandans rely on fuel firewood for cooking, with the urban population using mainly charcoal while their rural counterparts use the actual firewood. 

A balfor continental 416 Joy, was one of the numerous latest machines that lit up the just concluded 45th of EIMA International, the Great exhibition of Agricultural Machinery in Bologna, Italy.
Balfor continental 416 Joy stood out for its rapid splitting of logs into sizeable fuel firewood that can be used for cooking or house heating during winter in outside countries.
Daniele Forestello, the Sales Operator of Balfor Company, reveals that the Balfor machine does the workload of splitting firewood that 10 people combined, can do.

“This machine is automatic, and one operator is able to produce the same quantity of wood that ten people can do. So the proposition is 1:10,” Daniele said last week during the week-long exhibition.
How the machine works
Daniele explains that when the logs are cut from the forest, they are brought to the machine and that one log at a time, is picked and put into the machine. 
“There is a blade in the machine that cuts the log into small pieces of one’s preference. The split firewood is then pushed into the conveyor belt,” explains Daniele.
Adding: “The conveyor belt then pushes the cut firewood out into a trailer or any container that is at the extreme end to receive the same.”
Why the Balfor machine?

According to Daniele, it is cheaper to use fuel firewood as a form of energy compared to petrol, gas and electricity to cook or heating houses.
“Wood is much cheaper than gas, petrol or electricity. So the option of wood is the best,” he notes.
The other advantage of using firewood according to Daniele is that fuel firewood is environment friendly as opposed to use of other energies like petrol that emit gases, thereby polluting the environment.
What the manufacturer says about the machine vis a vis endangering the environment.

In Uganda, cutting of public forests for firewood, timber and other uses is illegal. However, Daniele says that since wood grows back very fast when chopped, there no need to worry about environmental degradation. “We encourage people to cut the wood and replant. Usually in Europe, we don’t replant because they grow back again very fast, so this is the concept of renewable energy,” notes Daniele. More than 90 percent of Ugandans rely on fuel firewood for cooking, with the urban population using mainly charcoal while their rural counterparts use the actual firewood.
Forests and woodland account for 15 percent of Uganda’s territory, but the country’s forest cover has dwindled from 24 percent in the 1990s to now eight percent.

It’s believed that if deforestation continues at the present rate, Uganda will lose all its forest cover by 2050. 
According to United Nations data, as of 2018, over 42 percent of Ugandans had access to electricity since many were too poor to afford it. 
Statistics further showed that between 2016 and 2017, 90 percent of all households used firewood for cooking purposes.
Due to illegal logging, Uganda has over the past two decades, lost 63 percent of its forest cover due to tree-cutting for timber, firewood, and charcoal that is mainly sold and used in urban settings.

Cost of the Balfor machine
When asked about the cost of the machine, Daniele said it varies in sizes but on average, one can for go for 30,000 Euros which is about Shs120m.
He says a community can pull resources to buy the firewood splitter machine that they can be used communally since its price is slightly on a higher end. Due to its prices being slightly high, Daniele says the African market is not much sought after for now though he said smaller machines that can do similar work have been sent to the African market.

Challenges
The core challenge that Daniele points out with the use of the machine is the spare parts that he says are not readily available.
“You need to have spare parts if the machine is not to stop working. So you need to have spare parts readily available which might be a little expensive. So sometimes if the machines breaks down and you don’t have readily available spare parts to fix it, it will take longer to be rectified.” says Daniele.
The other machines at the exhibition that dealt with wood, included those that would crash big logs into powder like form and those that could crash and move around tree trunks.