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The main diet of nearly 65% of India's population is rice. To remove rice from it, it has to be processed. The crushing of rice is the process through which its husk and bran are separated from the grains of paddy, which gives the polished rice. It is one of the oldest professions of India and its turnover is more than 25,500 crore rupees per year.

Most of us know that rice is one of the most consumed foods on this planet and more than 50% of its human population relies on rice as its staple food item. Of the many, amazing varieties of rice used globally, one is parboiled rice. This moniker might fool you into believing that it is a pre-cooked/boiled variety, but that is just not the case.

Factually speaking, India is the largest producer and exporter of Basmati rice and one of the largest exporters of rice, in general. Rice milling is perhaps the oldest and also the biggest agro-processing industry in the country. As it was last determined, India had a turnover of more than Rs. 25,000 cr/year and had the capacity to process approximately 85,000 tonnes of paddy each year, in turn, providing the staple food item to more than 60% of its population.

As such, the rice production cycle is divided into 3 distinct stages. These are pre-planting, growth and post-production. In one of our previous blogs, we thoroughly discussed the initial stage of rice production, i.e. the pre-planting process.

Generally, rice plants take about 3 to 6 months to grow from seedlings to reach maturity, mostly varying according to the environmental conditions and undergo 3 distinct growth phases, which are vegetative, reproductive and ripening. As such, rice varieties across the world are categorized into 2 groups based on their growth duration.

This post by Nextech Agri Solutions aims to provide practical knowledge necessary for small-scale farmers entering the rice production business. Beginning with the pre-planting activities, this post will cover the rice varieties to choose from, information on seed quality, crop calendar and land preparation.

Moisture content, as we define it, is the weight of water in rice or paddy expressed in percentage. In post-harvest handling, MC is stated on a wet basis (MCwb). Simply put, it’s percentage of water in a wet grain. The importance of measuring moisture content It’s imperative to determine accurate moisture content. This is done with a view to effectively manage and market paddy, for each purpose requires different moisture content.

I wish we had retained our full name, Khushi Ram and Behari Lal, instead of the acronym KRBL, since it speaks volumes about our legacy,’ reminisces Anil K Mittal. ‘After all, there’s a lot in a name.” The famous Shakespearean phrase, ‘what’s in a name?’ has little to no importance in Anil K Mittal’s life.