The Full Belly Project, spearheaded by Jock Brondis, an ex-Peace Corps volunteer and light and sounds engineer, is a non-profit organization that designs and delivers simple agricultural machines to people in developing countries around the world. This project teaches people how to build hand-operated machines with common materials.

The peanut industry is not only huge in the Philippines but the reach goes as far as the different corners of the hemisphere, to almost 100 countries, feeding 500 million people and making it a great source of protein. It is also a cash crop which provides livelihood for poor people of developing countries.

But for such a big industry, the agricultural technology of peanuts is still trailing behind. People are still shelling peanuts by hand, painfully one by one. In Africa, most of those who do the work are women. (To save on fuel, peanuts are left dried under the sun which makes their shell hard to open.)

Jock Brandis, on his way to visit a friend in Mali, saw the heart of the problem and decided to use his technical skills to provide an agricultural solution. Thus the Universal Nut Sheller was born.

Invented by Brandis, the nut sheller can work 40 times faster than by hand. This coincided with the establishment of The Full Belly project spearheaded by Brondis which aims to “to relieve hunger through appropriate agricultural technology.” The goal of the organization is to distribute these machines around the world and make peanut a number one source of protein of third world countries. Brandis, out of his generous heart, didn´t patent his invention because he believes that it is “a gift to those in need.”

Not only can peanut provide livelihood but it contains highly nutritious properties which could solve worldwide hunger and eventually poverty-this time on a full stomach.

The machine is made of concrete and simple metal parts which only cost 50 dollars to make. It can shell “50 kilograms of peanuts per hour, and one machine can serve the needs of a village of 2,000. Its life expectancy is 25 years.” The Full Belly Project is now working in Uganda, Senegal, Zambia and Ghana. Filipino MIT graduate and Centromigrante head Illac Diaz has also collaborated with Full Belly Project with the help of a local cement company to teach locals how to build the machines.