“Rice quality has been an issue since long and there is a tough competition among rice exporting countries in international market. There is a need for improved rice production, harvesting and milling technology in the country. Currently about 9,000 old re-assembled conventional wheat combine harvesters are being used for rice harvesting and that are causing grain shattering, breakage losses and low head rice recovery.”
This was stated by Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) Secretary and PARC Agricultural Engineering Division (AED) Director General Dr Munir Ahmad while addressing all stakeholders including farmers, machinery service providers, rice millers, rice exporters, manufacturers, and representatives of line departments on the occasion of a day-long national seminar on “Rice quality and head recovery affected by harvesting/threshing and milling practices” at a local hotel in Gujranwala.
Speaking on the occasion, National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) Director General Dr Muhammad Azeem Khan said that by adopting new improved harvesting machines, about 4-6 billion worth of losses in rice quality could be saved annually. He said PARC has developed various crop productions technologies and innovations for the benefit of small farmers. He said we are working with various stakeholders for transfer of new innovations to the end-users to make the agriculture more profitable.
Speaking on the occasion, NARC Agricultural and Biological Engineering Institute (ABEI) Director Dr Tanveer Ahmad said that due to traditional drying and storage practices more often rice produced is affected by aflatoxin. Poor crop conditions also affect rice head rice recovery. PARC has conducted a study factors causing low head rice recovery. The results showed that conventional combines are causing low head rice recovery and paddy harvested by head feeding combines and manual harvesting gave better head rice recovery.
After detailed discussion, some recommendations were suggested by the participants of the seminar which include i) development of new improved rice varieties; ii) introduction of high capacity head feeding combines; iii) installation of rice kit on already operating conventional wheat combines that are being used for rice harvesting; iv) Engineering Institute with collaboration of Engro (Pvt) initiate a project to design and develop an improved rice threshing kit for conventional combine harvesters; v) Government legislation to restrict farmers and combine service providers not to harvest paddy crop at higher moisture content; and vi) introduction of mechanical dryers, etc.
