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PART II
TRADE NEWS •••
How the handling of grain changed over time ?
INTERESTING FACTS WERE COVERED IN THE FIRST PART ABOUT GRAIN HANDLING . THIS SECOND PART HAS MORE FACTS ABOUT SILOS AND CORN BAGS AND HOW EVERYTHING CHANGED OVER THE YEARS .
THYS GROBBELAAR SENIOR GRAIN ANALYST , SENWES GRAINLINK
During the mid-twenties the Railways built various so-called B-silos next to the railway lines connected to coastal areas . The objective was to facilitate exports by handling maize in bulk . The photograph below shows the completed B-silo which was put into commission at Viljoenskroon . The photograph was taken in 1937 . This specific silo has already been partially demolished . The maize was still transported by oxwagon in 90 kilogram bags , which were emptied into the bunker of the silo . The total maize handling process was therefore manual . The capacity of the B-silos was between 2 000 and 6 000 tons . A few of the B-silos are still in use , even in the Senwes area . Conveyor belts which transported the maize to the embarked on silo building programmes , in terms of which vertical concrete silos were erected . The silo building programme only really gained momentum at the beginning of 1970 and was completed by the mid-eighties . An example of such a vertical concrete silo is the one at Buckingham , near Ventersdorp . This specific silo was built in 1978 and has a bulk capacity of 90 000 tons .
HOW DID THE MASS OF A BAG OF MAIZE
CHANGE OVER TIME ?
Maize was handled in 90 kg imperial bags in South Africa from 1900 into the sixties . After the sixties maize was handled in 70 kg metric bags . Maize has been handled in 50 kg bags since the nineties for the purpose of retail selling and for exports to Africa . In the European Union , bags handled by humans may not have a mass of more than 25 kg .
Makes you wonder - is our physical power diminishing ? vehicle or to the maize stockpile made the handling of maize slightly easier during later years . It relieved the exertion involved in the handling of maize somewhat . The mass of the bag was still 90 kilogram . Remember , the mass of the bag of maize was much more than that of the average person who had to carry it on his head . It can be seen in the photograph below how the bags were moved from the stockpile to a vehicle . At the end of the sixties the different co-opera tives
SENWES Scenario • FEB / MAR 2017 31