Rice Parboiling Method using False Bottom Technology

Programme: 2021 Training of VCDP Youth Entrepreneurs

Sponsored by: Value Chain Development Programme (IFAD/VCDP)

A practical training delivered by: Dayo Olorunfemi from Live Rice Mill[1] Lokoja

      with assistant by Victor Ogbelu

Beneficiaries: Youths engaged in Rice Parboiling Enterprise from selected LGAs in Kogi State acquired operational management skills in 2021

Date: November, 2021

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[1] https://live-rice-mill.business.site

What is Rice Parboiling Operations?

Parboiling operations is a basic requirement in the process of turning raw paddy rice into milled rice as food consumed by children and adults. For raw paddy to be processed into edible rice, a number of pre-activities or tasks need to be carried out even before parboiling activities can take place in the Rice Parboiling Enterprise (RPE) as a business.

There are varieties of activities that happen in the RPE business.

There are people involved who are engaged in these activities and of course, there are trading partners. What we mean by trading partners, as you all know, is the suppliers of the paddy rice from the farm–this people are known as Smallholder’s Rice Farmers (SRF).

Other key trading partners are the millers or Small-scale Processors (SsP) that pays you to provide services of rice parboiling to them or on profitable basis, you can sell your quality parboiled rice to SsP. So, all these things are involved in delivering quality product (parboiled rice) and services to the customers (SsP).

Operational Management technique used to deliver the training

The youth trainee learning skills in rice parboiling operations should know that RPE is about ensuring that all these things (selection of quality paddy rice variety from SRF and trading with SsP) work in perfect alignment, which means that

• what do we want trainee to intend doing through the parboiling activities?
• What do we want trainee to do when they deal with paddy suppliers and customers?  
• What should you expect your trading partners to do?

Proffering answers to the 3 questions raise above will enable you control the buying of poor-quality input paddy and losing money from your RPE as a business whose outcomes indicators is to increase your RPE “incomes” and output indicator “the quality” of parboiled rice using false bottom method. All of these questions must be answered by the RPE owner and that is the only way by which we will be able to deliver what the customer want. It’s very simple and don’t forget to keep production and sales record weekly.

Now, the most important thing to know is, we should be able to do this parboiling activities to result to quality parboiled rice that is better than the competition. If we are not able to do these things better than our competitors in the market then, you know it’s a problem.

Objectives of the Rice Parboiling Training

This manual is prepared with a view that its users (parboilers, small scale rice processors) would be productive agents of rice processing in the value chain development programme (VCDP) in Kogi State. The goal of this training session is

• To educate parboilers (Kogi State VCDP youth) on the critical steps in the process that may affect quality of the milled rice (food product) so as to ensure a better-quality end-product.

At the end of this training on rice parboiling, the participants should be able to

• Identify the limitations of the traditional practices in the rice parboiling activities which ultimately contributes to poor quality of parboiled paddy leading to poor quality of milled rice, since the quality of the raw-materials determines the quality of the finished product.

• Understand the step by steps guideline to use false bottom methods/tools for steaming activities required to correct the identified challenges.

• Demonstrate through participation in practical session, the benefits of false bottom tools on improved quality of parboiled and milled rice over traditional parboiling practices in their RPE Location in Kogi State.

What is False Bottom Parboiling Method?

False bottom is the separation of boiling water from having direct contact with parboiled paddy rice during the steaming activities stage of parboiling operations for RPE. While this definition looks so simple, in reality, when we get into a little more of the false bottom details what we find is it’s not as simple as it appears at the outset. Implementing False bottom throws several challenges and that is where the issue of parboiling operations come in.

Basic Activities and Stages in the Rice Processing Operations

This section uses a flowchart to identify and explain the basic duties of agents in the post-harvest operations. The expected to be performed by smallholder’s rice farmers (SRF) before the rice parboilers or processors (SsP) can take input buying decision to source and raw paddy rice from the SRF.

The training participants should carefully observe the flowchart and note that, during rice harvesting, most SRF prefer to do bulking and paddy threshing activities alone on the farm and sometimes SRF harvest paddy that are not matured which they packaged with the matured (ripe for harvest) paddy.

The un-matured paddy is known as impurities which the productive agents in RPE is expected to separate them out from matured grains during pre-cleaning/ paddy washing stage in the secondary processing activities carried out as duties of the RPE operations.

Unfortunately, after the SRF have stored and packaged their paddy in bags with the aim to sell paddy in the open market, some of the primary processing operations like the “Winnowing and then–Drying” activities are sometime left undone or not properly carried out by the people employed by SRF.

As a result, at the primary processing stages, the lack of effective winnowing and drying operations is what we called the “Black Box” problem inherent in the purchase of paddy in the open market by RPE and small-scale rice processors.

The effect of the Black Box paddy buying decision is that, too much of chaff or un-matured paddy grains in the packaged paddy can significantly reduce the profit of the RPE and that of the rice millers. Hence, extra care must be taken during the sourcing and selection of paddy variety to be bought from the smallholder’s rice farmers.

The careful selection of paddy from SRF is important because open paddy market lacks proper regulation of paddy grain quality –wrong purchase of poor-quality paddy is more likely to reduce the expected incomes derived from RPE activities.

Want to know more about how to design this simple and efficient false bottom technology for improved rice parboiling, you can find and download the practical guide for free.

if you desire to start a rice parboiling enterprise as a service within your immediate community, kindly download the free practical report on Rice processing training for VCDP youth using this button below.