Dayalu Baba Preparing Parboiled Rice

Dayalu Baba preparing parboiled rice. After boiling the rice paddy it is dried in the sun and then taken to a mill to remove the husk. The mill takes around 10% of your rice as milling charge.

The exact charge is a bit peculiar. It's 20 rs. to process an old oil can filled of paddy (maybe its about a 15 litres oil can). Roughly it ends up coming to 10% of your total crop, which is a lot for just removing the husk. The entire agricultural system is designed to keep the farmers in poverty and push people to the city where the system can control them.

Considering that the rice they grow and eat is only 20 rs. a kilo, the charge for milling is quite steep. They are taking 1 kg for every 10 kgs processed, and thats just for removing the husk. There are so many other stages of labor in growing and harvesting rice, but just for this one stage they take 10% of your crop.

Parboiled rice is supposed to be more resistant to weevil infestation. Personally I don't like the taste and I only eat what they call "raw rice", which is not parboiled.

Villagers tend to eat what we would consider the lowest grade rice. Very thick, dense and chewy rice. I guess the yield is higher for that than for basmati rice. Villagers always say they cant digest basmati rice, and most dont like the taste. This thick rice sells for around 20 rs. a kilo. Basmati is two or three times the cost, but the yield is less, and the processing more difficult.

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