Bhuvani Devi, a frail-looking woman in her early thirties, has taken up a new challenge — to produce a tonne of parboiled rice in Baarwan village in Jharkhand’s Deoghar district. Unlike what the region’s paddy farmers did until now, she wants to process and sell parboiled rice rather than paddy itself. “We used to sell paddy at a much lower rate than parboiled rice in order to save ourselves from the tedious traditional method of producing the rice,” she explains.

In the traditional method, a large-sized, heavy iron pan, or kadhayi , is used to heat paddy. At least two people were needed to handle the utensil, which also called for constant monitoring to prevent burning or over-heating the paddy.

Today, thanks to a new method of parboiling rice, even women like Devi can manage the time-consuming process all alone.

The custom-designed paddy steaming unit was fabricated by Jharkhand-based non-profits Abhivyakti Foundation and Centre for World Solidarity and executed with aid from German developmental organisation WeltHungerHilfe as part of its Sustainable Integrated Farming System (SIFS) programme.

“Now I can carry the container by myself and mount it easily on the heating unit,” says Devi. She pours water into the container, waits for it to boil and then fills the drum with paddy, nearly one tonne of it. As the paddy boils, Devi caters to her one-year-old toddler in between monitoring the paddy regularly.

The SIFS programme has been promoting innovative methods for increasing agriculture output while decreasing the input costs for small farmers in the drought-prone areas of Jharkhand.

Parboiled rice is the form in which rice is partially boiled in its husk before being sent to the rice hulling machine for final processing. It is especially popular in eastern and southern India (also known as usna ). With a higher nutritional value than white rice, its production is profitable for farmers.

Says Krishna Kant, a member of Abhivyakti Foundation, “Farmers were selling paddy at throwaway prices as they did not have storage systems nor the time and fuel for parboiling rice. In fact, most of them would buy rice from the market for their own consumption, as their limited stock of parboiled rice would run out.”

A post-harvest activity, parboiling is predominantly handled by women. In place of the heavy and unwieldy traditional boiler, a 200-litre mobile drum has been modified into a parboiling device by adding a sieve, which divides the container into two parts. The lower section is used to store water, while the paddy is placed in the upper section. A small opening on the side is used to remove the parboiled rice. This is a great improvement over the traditional method, in which the entire container had to be lifted to pour out the rice. Besides labour, the contraption also saves on time — the boiled water can be reused for new batches, lowering the parboiling time by 15-20 minutes every cycle — and halves the fuel needed.

The unit reduces loss of grain by up to 60 per cent (from 4.5 kg per 100 kg to 2 kg). Naturally, many farmers have now started selling processed rice, instead of paddy. Gyani Devi from Barwaan says, “Earlier we would hire labourers, but now I can manage the whole process alone. My family now sells rice instead of paddy, adding to our meagre income.” The farmers get ₹10 per kg for paddy, and nearly ₹18-22 for parboiled rice. The worth of the grain is hence almost doubled, points out Rajesh Jha of CWS.

Initially, 35 drums were introduced under the project, and when they proved popular an additional 60 were provided to farmers. The success spurred Pravah and other agencies to spread the technology further in Deoghar and Giridih districts, says Krishna Kant. Support has also come through government schemes like the National Bank for Rural Development’s Rural Innovation Fund, under which 85 parboiling drums have been distributed to farmers with a 70 per cent subsidy on the original cost of ₹2,800. The scheme is being promoted in other districts of Jharkhand through women’s self-help groups and farmer clubs.

The writer has undertaken the Charkha rural writer’s programme and is based in Deoghar, Jharkhand

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