Rice bran oil:

New horizon in rice industry

Eng. P. U. Wickramaratna

Sri Lanka is a rice growing and rice consuming country since her civilisation originally established in the Dry Zone of the country about 2500 years ago.

As rice is the stable food of majority Sri Lankans rice production has been the main agro-industry for centuries and even today it is the main livelihood of many farmers, comprising about 70 per cent of rural workforce.

However, the same farmers, who feed the nation and contribute substantially to the national economy, still live in just above the poverty line as they do not get their rightful share from rice farming.

It is true that all successive Governments since independence have done so many innovations to increase the productivity of paddy lands but the living condition of the farmers remains the same.

Ever increasing production costs due to soaring price of inputs and thereby less profitability, highly monopolised market where middlemen get the benefit might have been contributed to this poor plight of farmers.

One wonders while a kilo of rice selling at 70 rupees at the market in the city, how much goes to the poor farmer at the village who produced the same kilo at the end of the day?

Though rubber and tea industries in Sri Lanka have been diversified substantially from their original status of selling raw to more value added products, rice industry, the biggest in the country still depends on producing and selling raw rice to the local market.

It is true that the industry has achieved its obligation to meet the demand of the staple food, the main calorie intake to its majority population, but its contribution to the national economy is not on par with the contribution from other two competitive industries.

All will agree that the rice industry needs changes, needs reforms in order to perform well in the national economy but the most important factor is how much the farmer, who is the main stakeholder in the industry will benefit from such a change.

It is the duty of national planners in rice industry to think beyond ‘rice’ and find means and ways to produce rice products for global market while improving the quality of rice products which is sold in the local market.

In other words, new rice industry of Sri Lanka should be focused on the untapped potential of all components of the paddy grain to find new products while improving the quality of rice for local consumption.

As other rice growing countries in the region have already ventured into this business, this would be the right time to transform the traditional rice industry in Sri Lanka too into new heights, to a macro industry geared to produce and market not only quality rice but all by-products of paddy.

This paper discusses some untapped potentials of rice milling, especially giving emphasis on value addition to rice ‘bran’, and making Rice Bran Oil, one of the high value products of rice, in the world today.

When the rice grain after harvesting and threshing, is called as paddy, needs shelling or milling to get raw rice which later process further to prepare into white or brown rice which we could consume as a food. Rice is the main product generated from the process of milling, while the other two by-products are husk and rice bran.

(The writer is Director (Engineering), Ministry of Irrigation and Water Management)