Preparation

• 1 Prior to planting, minimal soil manipulation is needed to prepare for cultivation.

If the rice will be grown on a hilly terrain, the area must be leveled into terraces.
Paddies are leveled and surrounded by dikes or levees with the aide of earth-
moving equipment.

The cultivation of rice begins by planting water-soaked seeds in a properly

prepared bed. Oftentimes, the seedlings are transplanted to the paddy when they
reach a certain size. When the grains begin to ripen, the water is drained from the
fields. Harvesting begins when the grain yellow and the plants start to droop.
Depending on the size of the operation and the amount of mechanization, rice is
either harvested by hand or machine. Once harvested, the rice is usually dried in
the fields with the help of sunshine.

Then, the fields are plowed before planting. In the United States, rice is most
often planted on river deltas and plowing is accomplished with a disk plow, an
off-set disk plow, or a chisel. Adequate irrigation of the terrace or river delta bed
is required and accomplished by leveling and by controlling water with pumps,
reservoirs, ditches, and streams.

Planting

• 2 Rice seeds are soaked prior to planting.

 • 3 Depending on the level of mechanization and the size of the planting, seeding
occurs in three ways. In many Asian countries that haven't mechanized their
farming practices, seeds are sown by hand. After 30-50 days of growth, the
seedlings are transplanted in bunches from nursery beds to flooded paddies. Seeds
can also be sown using a machine called a drill that places the seed in the ground.
Larger enterprises often found in the United States sow rice seed by airplane.
Low-flying planes distribute seed onto already flooded fields. An average
distribution is 90-100 lb per acre (101-111 kg per hectare), creating roughly 15-30
seedlings per square foot.

Harvesting

• 4 Once the plants have reached full growth (approximately three months after
planting) and the grains begin to ripen—the tops begin to droop and the stem
yellows—the water is drained from the fields. As the fields dry, the grains ripen
further and harvesting is commenced.
• 5 Depending on the size of the operation and the amount of mechanization, rice is
either harvested by hand or machine. By hand, rice stalks are cut by sharp knives
or

At the processing plant, the rice is cleaned and hulled. At this point, brown rice
needs no further processing. If white rice is desired, the brown rice is milled to
remove the outer bran layers.

sickles. This practice still occurs in many Asian countries. Rice can also be
harvested by a mechanized hand harvester or by a tractor/horse-drawn machine
that cuts and stacks the rice stalks. In the United States, most operations use large
combines to harvest and thresh—separate the grain from the stalk—the rice stalks.

• 6 If the rice has been harvested by hand or by a semi-automated process,

threshing is completed by flailing the stalks by hand or by using a mechanized
thresher.
Drying

• 7 Before milling, rice grains must be dried in order to decrease the moisture
content to between 18-22%. This is done with artificially heated air or, more
often, with the help of naturally occurring sunshine. Rice grains are left on racks
in fields to dry out naturally. Once dried, the rice grain, now called rough rice, is
ready for processing.

Hulling

• 8 Hulling can be done by hand by rolling or grinding the rough rice between
stones. However, more often it is processed at a mill with the help of automated
processes. The rough rice is first cleaned by passing through a number of sieves
that sift out the debris. Blown air removes top matter.
• 9 Once clean, the rice is hulled by a machine that mimics the action of the
handheld stones. The shelling machine loosens the hulls from the rice by rolling
them between two sheets of metal coated with abrasives. 80-90% of the kernel
hulls are removed during this process.
• 10 From the shelling machine, the grains and hulls are conveyed to a stone reel
that aspirates the waste hulls and moves the kernels to a machine that separates
the hulled from the unhulled grains. By shaking the kernels, the paddy machine
forces the heavier unhulled grains to one side of the machine, while the lighter
weight rice falls to the other end. The unhulled grains are then siphoned to
another batch of shelling machines to complete the hulling process. Hulled rice
grains are known as brown rice.

Milling

Since it retains the outer bran layers of the rice grain, brown rice needs no other
processing. However along with added vitamins and minerals, the bran layers also
contain oil that makes brown rice spoil faster than milled white rice. That is one of the
reasons why brown rice is milled further to create a more visually appealing white rice.

• 11 The brown rice runs through two huller machines that remove the outer bran
layers from the grain. With the grains pressed against the inner wall of the huller
and a spinning core, the bran layers are rubbed off. The core and inner wall move
closer for the second hulling, ensuring removal of all bran layers.
• 12 The now light-colored grain is cooled and polished by a brush machine.
• 13 The smooth white rice is conveyed to a brewer's reel, where over a wire mesh
screen broken kernels are sifted out. Oftentimes, the polished white rice is then
coated with glucose to increase luster.

Enriching
The milling process that produces white rice also removes much of the vitamins and
minerals found primarily in the outer bran layers. Further processing is often done in
order to restore the nutrients to the grain. Once complete, the rice is called converted rice.

• 14 White rice is converted in one of two ways. Prior to milling, the rice is steeped
under pressure in order to transfer all the vitamins and minerals from the bran
layers to the kernel itself. Once done, the rice is steamed, dried, and then milled.
Rice that has already been milled can be submersed in a vitamin and mineral bath
that coats the grains. Once soaked, they are dried and mixed with unconverted
rice.

Quality Control
Quality control practices vary with the size and location of each farm. Large commercial
rice farms in the United States more often than not apply the most effective combination
of herbicides, fertilization, crop rotation, and newest farming equipment to optimize their
yields. Smaller, less mechanized operations are more likely to be influenced by
traditional cultural methods of farming rather than high technology. Certainly, there are
benefits to both approaches and a union of the two is ideal. Rotating crops during
consecutive years is a traditional practice that encourages large yield as is the planting of
hardier seed varieties developed with the help of modern hybridization practices.

Byproducts/Waste
Straw from the harvested rice plants is used as bedding for livestock. Oil extracted from
discarded rice bran is used in livestock feed. Hulls are used to produce mulch that will
eventually be used to recondition the farm soil.

The essential use of irrigation, flooding, and draining techniques in rice farming also
produces runoff of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers into natural water systems. The
extensive use of water in rice farming also increases its level of methane emissions. Rice
farming is responsible for 14% of total global methane emissions.

The Future
With one out of every three people on earth dependent on rice as a staple food in their
diet and with 80-100 million new people to be fed annually, the importance of rice
production to the worldwide human population is crucial. Scientists and farmers face the
daunting task of increasing yield while minimizing rice farming's negative environmental
effects. Organizations such as the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the
West African Rice Development Association (WARDA), and Centro Internacional de
Agricultura Tropical (CIAT [International Center for Tropical Agriculture]) are
conducting research that will eventually lead to more productive varieties of rice and rice
hybrids, use of less water during the growing season, decrease in the use of fresh organic
fertilizer that contributes to greenhouse effect, and crops more resistant to disease and
pests.

Read more: How rice is made - material, history, used, processing, machine, History,
Raw Materials, Design, The Manufacturing Process of rice, Quality Control,
Byproducts/Waste, The Future http://www.madehow.com/Volume-
5/Rice.html#ixzz14bng2KMu