Until today, you've likely never heard of a decorticator!

For millions of people in the world's semi-arid regions, sorghum and millet are important staple foods. However, these crops cannot be eaten until the outside layer, or hull, of the grain is removed. To do so, women and children traditionally spent hours daily, pounding the grain by hand.

In the 1970s, scientists from the National Research Council of Canada designed the first effective device that allowed farmers to hull sorghum and millet cheaply and quickly. The device, called a decorticator, processed the grain in a fraction of the time it takes to remove the hulls manually. Unlike previous designs, NRC's model was relatively cheap to install and easy to maintain. Decorticators have given people the power to feed themselves using hardy local crops instead of depending on expensive imports such as rice and wheat.