Rice Farming: Post Production, Harvesting And Drying

In many a developing country, 25 to 50% of the total grain value is lost between the harvest and consumption, mainly due to poor storage techniques, farm level wastage, and processing. This leads to lower incomes for farmers and higher prices for buyers. Further, there's a pressure on farmers to increase the production levels to attain higher rice yields and they end up using more land and fertilizers causing mass damage to the natural resources. This article aims at teaching you how to minimize grain losses and maintain rice quality for longer storage periods.

Step 1: Post production management

Post production management is all about how to handle the rice; from the time it's harvested to the time it's sold. Various processes such as cutting, hauling, cleaning and marketing the rice, etc. are involved. It's particularly important because it prevents both qualitative and quantitative loss and with a poor post production management, you're prone to losing as much as 50% of your total yield.

Step 2: Harvesting

This is simply a process of collecting the mature crop from the field; in our case, rice. Harvesting begins with cutting the crop and ends after it's been prepared to dry. It involves:

- Cutting

- Field drying

- Hauling

- Piling

- Threshing

- Cleaning

- Packing (to send it further for drying)

Harvesting at the correct time ensures that you get the maximum yield, diminishing quality degeneration. There are, however, certain physical losses one has to face during the harvesting operations. These are loosely based on the operations and machinery used during harvesting. These losses:

- Occur during cutting

- Occur during threshing and

- Occur during grain handlings

To minimize, it's important that you measure losses at each operation of harvesting and work upon it.

Step 3: Drying

The most critical operation once through the harvest, drying reduces the grain's moisture content to a safe level ideal for storing it for longer durations. Moisture laden grain is prone to discolouration, development of molds and pest infestation. It also reduces the seed's rate of germination, thus diminishing the overall grain quality. It happens when you:

- Wait too long before you begin drying

- Don't dry it long enough, whatever be your purpose

- Wrong techniques

Ideally, you should begin drying within 24 hours after the harvest. The grains should be dried down to different Moisture Content (MC) for different purposes.

- 14% or less MC for storing up to a few months

- 13% or less MC to store for 8 to 12 months

- 9% or less for storing more than a year

Drying techniques:

- Traditional systems: Sun drying, field drying and stacking

- Mechanical systems: Heated air drying, low temperature drying, solar drying and grain cooling

Nextech Grain Processing and Engineering is a rice mill plant consultant based in Delhi, India providing complete solutions for rice mill plant layouts, designing, detailed engineering and project coordination. Visit their website.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Of Rice And An Economy Driven by Women: Bittersweet Tale

Kogi is a centrally located state in Nigeria which is formed at the confluence of River Benue and Niger, giving rise to the name 'confluence state'. This story today is of rice and an economy driven by women. The women of Kogi, who are quietly but actively involved in the local rice trade spread across every corner of the state.

At any point of the process, from sowing and nurturing to harvesting to the sale, these women can be seen keeping the wheels of the economy moving. They keep their households up and running and function as breadwinners for their families; keeping the plates filled and education completely funded.

But, as the course of their daily life moves along, their vision deteriorates, rendering them a sight as good as a blind, turning the providers dependent. As it so happens, the women spend their days beating and threshing the rice. In the process, the seedlings often hit the cornea, causing laceration, which ultimately leads to corneal abrasion.

Even with the failing vision, a few of them choose to give their farms visits. And, for the lack of modern equipments, they spend their days using sticks, hoes and cutlasses, and sometimes, even their bare hands.

Ibaji, one of the local government areas, is blessed with rich alluvial soil and a skilled workforce. It's at Ibaji where most of the rice is grown, while most of the rice mills and other processing structures are at Idah.

While men are mostly involved in milling and transportation, the women workforce continue to push ahead with their farming work, despite their growing troubles, forging ahead feeding their families and educating their children.

The women of Kogi actively steer the state's rice industry cultivating the land, sowing the seeds, nurturing the plants and conveying the cultivated crop to vehicles, who take it all the way to Ibaji.

Those who feed on the locally produced rice have been heard singing its praise, claiming how the rice is free of stones, delicious, abundant in nutrition and gets cooked very easily.

The rice industry as a whole possesses a huge problem. Once the rice has been milled, women tend to take the husk away and sift it again in order to obtain the remnants of the rice. Inhaling the fine dust with their eyes and nose wide open, their lifespan is going to be significantly affected. They wouldn't see as long as they are supposed to, and wouldn't live as long as they should have lived. Adding to the trouble is the carcinogenic nature of the problem, which has the potential to further shorten the lifespan of these heroes.

The women in Kogi go through a lot to keep their homes healthy and alive. Someone rightly said, not all heroes wear cape.

Nextech Agri Solutions is a promising manufacturer and exporter of finest rice mill machinery and equipments and a leader in installing rice mill machinery. For more details, visit their website

Article Source: EzineArticles