HARVESTING, DRYING AND MILLING OF RICE

Unmilled rice, known as paddy (Indonesia
and Malaysia: padi; Philippines, palay), is
usually harvested when the grains have a
moisture content of around 25%. In most
Asian countries, where rice is almost
entirely the product of small holder agriculture, harvesting is carried out
manually, although there is a growing
interest in mechanical harvesting.
Harvesting can be carried out by the
farmers them selves, but is also frequently
done by seasonal labour groups. Harvesting is followed by threshing, either immediately or within a day or two. Again,
much threshing is still carried out by hand
but there is an increasing use of mechanical
threshers. Subsequently, paddy needs to be
dried to bring down the moisture content to
no more than 20% for milling. A familiar sight in several Asian countries is paddy
laid out to dry along roads. However, in
most countries the bulk of drying of
marketed paddy takes place in mills, with
village-level drying being used for paddy to
be consumed by farm families. Mills either sun dry or use mechanical driers or both.
Drying has to be carried out quickly to avoid
the formation of moulds. Mills range from
simple hullers, with a through put of a couple of tonnes a day, that simply remove the
outer husk, to enormous operations that can
process 4,000 tonnes a day and produce
highly polished rice. A good mill can achieve
a paddy-to-rice conversion rate of up to
72% but smaller, in efficient mills often struggle to achieve 60%. These smaller
mills often do not buy paddy and sell rice
but only service farmers who want to mill
their paddy for their own consumption. Distribution Because of the importance of rice to human
nutrition and food security in Asia, the
domestic rice markets tend to be subject to
considerable state involvement. While the
private sector plays a leading role in most
countries, agencies such as BULOG in Indonesia, the NFA in the Philippines, VINA FOOD in Vietnam and the Food Corporation of India are all heavily involved in purchasing of paddy from farmers or rice
from mills and in distributing rice to poorer
people. BULOG and NFA monopolise rice
imports into their countries while VINAFOOD controls all exports from Vietnam.


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