What is the importance of maize processing?
What are the advantages of a good complete maize ...
A maize processing plant is an important machine for producing corn flour. For the corn machine to be used for a long time, users must make reasonable use of the equipment and perform maintenance and upkeep work.
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30-200tpd maize processing plant
Good maize milling machines are very important for manufacturers. It can not only improve the competitiveness of enterprises and win the trust and loyalty of customers but also bring more business opportunities and market recognition to enterprises.
50 tons maize processing plant for sale
50tpd maize milling plant
Characteristics of 50 tons maize processing machine
To produce super white maize meal, super maize flour, and grits.
Complete Line From Cleaningdeterminatingmillingpackagingcontrolling system, Automatic, simple operation
Corn flour mill Steel structure, discharging equally, low noise, good stability, easy operation, convenient maintenance, etc
Stainless steel Pipes in contact with the material, more durable, 5-10 years longer than the material of the galvanized sheet
What are the specific advantages of complete sets of maize processing equipment?
High-quality maize processing plant should have stable and reliable performance, sophisticated manufacturing technology, high standards of parts quality, and strict quality control processes.
1. Efficiency: The machine should be able to process corn efficiently and improve production efficiency and product quality.
2. Stability: The machine should have stable performance and be able to operate stably in different environments to ensure product quality and output.
3. Reliability: The maize processing plant should have high reliability and durability, reduce the frequency of maintenance and replacement of parts, and extend the service life of the machine.
4. Water vapor adjustment system: The design of the water vapor adjustment system needs to be considered to ensure the appropriate moisture and humidity of the corn during processing and promote the smooth progress of the processing process.
5. Degree of automation: Corn processing machines should have a control system with a high degree of automation, which can realize automated operation and monitoring, improve production efficiency, and reduce labor costs.
6. Environmental protection: The machine should meet environmental protection requirements, reduce the generation of waste gas, wastewater, and dust, and reduce environmental pollution.
7. Easy maintenance: The structure and component design of the machine should be easy to maintain and maintain, reducing maintenance costs and time.
40-50TPD maize processing plant
Designing a complete set of maize meal processing plant requires comprehensive consideration of a variety of technical requirements to ensure that the machine is efficient, stable, reliable, environmentally friendly, easy to maintain, and meets actual production needs.
At the same time, manufacturers should also focus on after-sales service and quality assurance, providing customers with timely and thoughtful technical support and maintenance services to ensure the normal operation and use of the equipment.
Global maize production, consumption and trade: trends ...
Maize plays a key and increasing role in global agri-food systems. The previous sections summarized the status of maize production, consumption and international trade at the global and regional levels, focusing on the last few decades. We reflect here on the implications for research and development (R&D), with an emphasis on the Global South. We do so following the broad outcome categories of the agri-food systems framework: food & nutrition, environmental sustainability & resilience, and livelihoods & inclusiveness.
5.1
Food & nutritionThe co-existence of the triple burden of undernutrition (hunger), micronutrient malnutrition and overnutrition (overweight, obesity - Poole et al., ) has been variously associated with the prevailing agri-food systems. Concerns over the food and nutrition outcomes have been driving calls for agri-food system transformation. The direct and indirect pathways of consuming maize have different R&D implications for enhancing food and nutrition outcomes.
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Maizes human food pathway plays a geographically diverse role and has long been the focus to improve food security and the nutrition and health of vulnerable populations. This avenue merits continued R&D support given the importance of maize for food security in several geographies in the Global South. What is more, per capita food intake is increasing on aggregate, which together with continued population growth implies significant increase in needed maize for food in the coming decades. In the African and Latin American economies where maize is a traditional food crop, maize food consumption is likely to prevail and follow population growth. At the same time hunger has been increasing off-late with important implications for food access (FAO et al., ). Maizes nutritional quality can be enhanced further through biofortification (Prasanna et al., ) and industrial fortification (Peña-Rosas et al., ) although this is dependent on the consumption pathway (Gwirtz & Garcia-Casal, ). Highly processed food products, including maize derived, have been associated with junk food and overnutrition. There is immense potential in improving the processing and intake forms, including whole grain and enhanced nutritional retention (Poole et al., ), albeit with potential trade-offs for shelf-life (Gwirtz & Garcia-Casal, ). The utilization dimension of maize for food security thereby merits increased support to promote healthier diets (Grote et al., ). Given the varied maize food uses, there is a growing interest in nutritionally enriched maize, specialty maize, and improvement of end-use quality traits suitable for the processing industry and associated niche markets.
Maizes livestock feed pathway provides an indirect pathway for enhancing food and nutrition outcomes, providing higher value and more protein rich/nutritious food products than the original grain. The nutrition transition (Popkin, ) and economic growth have boosted the consumption of animal-sourced foods, many heavily reliant on maize as feed. In much of the Global South this sets maize for continued growth. Opportunities exist to further improve the feed value of maize in its various feed uses, including the use of maize grain, maize by-products and forage/silage.
Maizes high-level food-feed pathways potentially mask substantial heterogeneity. The Global South itself is heterogeneous, including the dichotomy between Asia (more feed) and Africa (more food). Geographic aggregations also can mask differences e.g. neighbouring Mexico and USA in the Americas; and even within countries e.g. contrasts between white maize for food and yellow maize for feed within Mexico. The scale and context of analysis clearly influences the R&D implications and their granularity. At the same time there are dynamics to consider, the nutrition transition being a case in point. The livestock feed pathway has been expanding rapidly, but is also increasingly exposed to countervailing powers to limit the consumption of animal-sourced foods and associated search for alternatives (including e.g. plant-based protein).
Many implications are indeed not black and white, but imply fuzzy gradients and trade-offs. Traditional maize production systems may be nutritionally diverse (e.g. the milpa system - de Frece & Poole, ; Falkowski et al., ). At the same time the food/nutrition security of many smallholder maize production systems improves when it extends beyond pure on farm production with important roles for value chains and market access (Frelat et al., ; Gelli et al., ). Similarly, there can be complementarities and/or competition between pathways. Maize grain characterizes human-edible feed but the distinction becomes fuzzier when the grain quality is no longer fit for human consumption but can still be used as feed. Other feeds like maize silage may not be human-edible, but may still compete for resources with maize for food. By-products of maize grain production and processing also can provide important feed sources. At face value bioethanol production may appear as a non-food/feed use of maize with implications more focused on the Global North and the USA in particularbut it generates valuable animal feed with high nutritional value as by-product, and potentially displaces maize that otherwise might have been exported.
Additional research could quantify maizes complex food and nutritional contribution, building on Mottet et al. () and other studies. Such research should establish maizes contribution through a comprehensive life cycle analysis, encompassing direct food pathways and indirect feed pathways. Such enhanced understanding could then also help better assess the potential of dual-purpose food-feed crops and prioritize food-feed pathway interventions. Given maizes dual food-feed pathway, maize provides a good and challenging case to expand such research. In the end though, similar studies would be needed for the other main food and feed crops to provide an enhanced agri-food system perspective and multi-commodity synergy and substitution possibilities.
Further opportunities to enhance food and nutrition outcomes include food safety, food waste, and consumer behaviour. In some instances, appropriate solutions are largely there, but require deploying to vulnerable geographies (e.g. food safety innovations). Others may still need further adaptive research to enable scaling. Enhanced understanding of consumer behaviour, particularly among vulnerable groups and in different cultures, can provide further insights in addressing the triple burden of malnutrition and the role of maize therein (Poole et al., ). Some of the R&D implications of maize to enhance food and nutrition outcomes are explored further in other papers (e.g. agri-nutrition researchPoole et al., ; food security and regional value chainsGrote et al., ).
5.2
Environmental sustainability & resilienceThe evolving agri-food systems have raised concerns about their environmental footprint and the need to stay within planetary boundaries (Willett et al., ). This makes it imperative to enhance the environmental sustainability and resilience of agri-food systems and has been another thrust in the calls for transformation. The different maize consumption pathways have different R&D implications for enhancing environmental sustainability and resilience outcomes.
Maize production systems in geographies where the human food pathway prevails tend to be relatively extensive with relatively low input use and yields. Increasing land pressure implies the need to intensify and close yield gaps (Fader et al., ). Much of SSA is a case in point with a prevalence of extensification contributing to past maize production increases. Extensive systems often mine soil fertility and reduce fallows, rather than use input intensification. This exacerbates soil organic carbon losses and land degradation, expands the agricultural frontier and potentially encroaches onto fragile ecosystems (Pelletier et al., ). This has led to increasing calls for sustainable agricultural intensification and associated R&D investments, particularly in Africa (Jayne & Sanchez, ; Jayne et al., ). Ongoing population growth and increasingly limited prospects for area expansion highlight the urgency of making real progress on sustainable intensification of maize-based systems in much of the Global South. Rural transformation has increased the prospects of such sustainable intensification, albeit significant support is still needed particularly in SSA (Jayne et al., ).
Maize production systems focused on the livestock feed pathway tend to be relatively intensive with relatively high input use and yields. Such intensive systems prevail in the Global North and can generate environmental externalities including pollution and land, water and ecosystem degradation. The North American corn belt is a case in point with algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico variously associated with agricultural runoff and eutrophication. This has led to increasing calls to increase nitrogen use efficiency and respecting nitrogen-boundaries (Chang et al., ). Such intensive systems at the same time open opportunities for environmental sustainability, including the origin and advent of conservation agriculture.
Such high-level stylized dichotomies illustrate some of the contrasts and implications, but can also again mask some of the underlying heterogeneity. Systems often tend to present fuzzy gradients instead of clear-cut boundaries. For instance, recent work in Zambia has highlighted the co-existence of maize systems both intensifying as well as still expanding (Ngoma et al., ). Commercial systems around the livestock feed pathway (including maize, soy, pastures) have also been variously linked to deforestation in Brazil. This reiterates the need to consider the scale of analysis in deriving implications and the need for more detailed localized studies to contextualize. It also calls for enhanced spatial analysis: mapping global maize production allows overlays with other variables and thereby a better understanding and mapping of environmental implications and dynamics. Such analysis would need to go beyond the current maize mega-environments (which reflect rainfed maize potential based on temperature and rainfall) and include additional considerations (e.g. irrigation, biophysical, socio-economic). Some of the considerations in terms of a potential spatial research agenda are explored further in other papers (e.g. Erenstein et al., ).
Environmental sustainability and resilience also call for an inherently dynamic perspective. Environmental degradation erodes productive capacity over time, with potential tipping points and irreversibility. Climate change and biodiversity loss pose further challenges. Future maize production will be increasingly impaired by environmental drivers such as climate change and land degradation (Grote et al., ). Maizes role in the stability dimension of food security thereby merits continued yet increased support (Grote et al., ). The sheer size of the maize economy implies the potential and urgency to explore climate change mitigation and adaptation options, including implications for biotic (pests, diseases) and abiotic (heat, drought) stresses.
R&D investments in making maize production more environmentally sustainable and resilient while adapting to climate change provide one avenue that is increasingly recognized, particularly in the Global South. At the same time care is needed not to encourage overextending maizes reach for instance, other dryland cereals may provide more resilient options in semi-arid environments. Demand side interventions also provide scope to improve the environmental sustainability, including a reduction of animal-sourced foods and thereby maize for feed to stay within planetary boundaries (Willett et al., ). Finally, international trade can both alleviate and exacerbate environmental impacts, including the environmental footprint of food miles, the implicit trade of environmental goods (e.g. water, nutrients) to stay within resource boundaries (Chang et al., ) and environmental spill over effects (e.g. deforestation associated with agricultural exports). Many such implications are again scale dependent (e.g., Europe including both maize importing and exporting nations).
5.3
Livelihoods & inclusivenessAgricultural-based growth is more effective at reducing poverty than growth originating from other sectors (Townsend, ), also given much of remaining poverty is rural. This makes it imperative to enhance livelihood outcomes and inclusiveness of agri-food systems, particularly in the Global South. The different maize consumption pathways thereby again have different R&D implications for enhancing such outcomes, with growth as a key driver for poverty reduction.
Maize production often is key for food and livelihood security for resource-constrained smallholder farmers in geographies where the human food pathway prevails. Such farms typically are both producers and consumers of maize as food (jointness of production-consumption) with potential sale of surplus production. At the same time, these production systems often exhibit slow growth and risk aversion and are low input-low output. Remote traditional maize production systems are a case in point and can exhibit resistance to change (de Frece & Poole, ).
Maize productions systems geared towards the livestock feed pathway tend to be more market oriented and dynamic. Maize in such instances can be an attractive cash crop. Maize in non-traditional maize growing areas in South Asia are a case in point. Given the livestock revolution in the Global South these systems are of increasing importance. The market integration provides cash and intensification incentives and substantial private sector interest.
The foregoing dichotomy is associated with the marked divergence between large-scale commercial maize productions systems and smallholder maize production systems with marked variations in yield, technology use and business models. The stylized dichotomy again is illustrative and masks some of the underlying heterogeneity. For instance, many smallholders are crop-livestock farmers exploiting interactions and complementarities. But in these integrated systems the human food pathway often prevails, and livestock is primarily fed on maize by-products. As specialization and market integration increases the livestock feed pathway tends to increase in importance. The dichotomy does reflect a certain path dependence whereby maize can be particularly transformative in non-traditional maize environments. Maize thereby also plays a diverging role in the access dimension of food security be it direct physical access to maize in the food pathway and an indirect access to food in general through improved income/purchasing power in the feed pathway. At the same time concerns have been raised about the affordability of sustainable and nutritious diets (Hirvonen et al., ) and thereby the need for affordable staple foods like maize (Poole et al., ).
Broad agricultural-based growth is more likely when profitability and livelihoods for actors and firms are inclusively secured throughout the value chain from production to retail. The diverse maize production systems create diverse incentives and implications for the private and public sector. Public support should thereby focus on the areas not well-catered for by the private sector and help redress divergences between private and societal interests. The political economy of maize also merits more attention, given the vested interests of its production, trade, input supply and processing industry. For instance, hybrid maize provides an attractive business model and spurs the growth of the seed industry, but concerns have been raised over the industrys increasing concentration and focus on high potential areas (Erenstein & Kassie, ; Scoones & Thompson, ). Vested interests can thereby narrow options for smallholders and undermine the development of adaptive capacities (Brooks, ). Indeed, R&D investments can enable agricultural growth, enhance livelihoods and make domestic production more competitive vis-à-vis imports, but still require scarce resources that may compete with the interests of the urban consumers and policy makers and over time have been variously undermined by global commodity market developments.
Risk remains a major challenge for maize producing smallholders. Established risk coping mechanisms can hold back change and innovation and thereby the needed agricultural growth and poverty alleviation. R&D investments are needed to provide viable risk management mechanisms that enable and crowd-in intensification. Promising innovations in this regard include weather index insurance (Tadesse et al., ) and drought tolerance (Prasanna et al., ), and particularly bundling of such innovations can enhance impact (Boucher et al., ).
Particular attention is needed to enhance the inclusiveness of R&D investments, including women, marginalized communities, and the resource poor. The R&D implications will thereby vary by the food and feed pathways. The human food pathway particularly merits public R&D support both to initiate growth and to ensure inclusiveness. The livestock feed pathway is inherently more market driven and dynamic but thereby calls for public support to focus on the inclusiveness dimension. The equitable transformation of agri-food systems thus calls for an enabling environment for accelerated, affordable and inclusive access and use of improved technologies and the associated strengthening of maize input and output value chains and markets across food and feed uses and support services and policies.
5.4
Cross-cutting implicationsOne of the most effective ways to promote agricultural growth is investment in agricultural R&D (Fuglie et al., ). Continued maize yield growth calls for a tripartite contribution of improved germplasm, improved crop management and enabling policies. Improved germplasm is particularly needed to continue to raise the maize yield frontier (yield potential), make it more resilient to the changing climates, enhance the nutritional value through biofortification, and address emerging challenges and opportunities, including transboundary diseases and insect-pests (Prasanna et al., ). Improved crop management is particularly needed to close yield gaps and stay within planetary boundaries, including sustainable intensification of maize production and reduced environmental externalities. Enabling policies are particularly needed to enable the further adaptation and use of the many promising innovations to increase and maintain maize productivity and alleviate constraints (e.g., access to improved seeds, finance, education/training and risk managementGrote et al., ), mainly in the Global South and in an inclusive way. The tripartite contribution generates important synergies, each enhancing the impact of the other and thereby focus on one cannot simply substitute for the other. At the same time maize yield growth variously impinges on each of the three agri-food system outcome categories.
Agri-food systems are inherently complex and involve a varied role for maize with three important final R&D implications in the context of agri-food system transformation. First, we need to understand and consider potential trade-offs and synergies. Maizes food-feed pathways have different implications and outcomes. Ideally, innovations simultaneously improve food & nutrition, environment & resilience and livelihoods & inclusiveness outcomes. More likely, there will be inherent contradictions and trade-offs. This calls for multidisciplinary approaches and the need to include user and policy perspectives. Understanding and managing trade-offs will be key in informing priorities and scenarios and aligning private incentives and societal interests. Second, agri-food systems, the role of maize and improvements are context dependent. Even though we focus on a single, albeit major, commodity, the current paper can only provide a broad-brush appraisal and illustrates the complexity and the challenge of deriving high level R&D implications. There is a need for further contextualization and operationalization at lower aggregation levels. Third, the situation is dynamic, including the agri-food systems, the role of maize and the general bio-physical and socio-economic context. There is thus not only the need to better understand agri-food systems but also to monitor their transformation (Fanzo et al., ) with important feedback and learning implications. This calls for policy responses that adapt to these changes and that facilitate and encourage multiple integrated R&D options with transformative potential. In the end, the sheer size, heterogeneity and rapid evolution of the global maize economy calls for more detailed analysis about maize and its evolving and varied roles in the agri-food systems, including enhanced insights into the associated drivers and modifiers. Future research could provide such more detailed spatial, dynamic and socio-political analysis and enhance the transformative power of maize and agri-food systems towards the Agenda.
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