Parboiled rice gains popularity

A worker mans a rice-parboiling machine at Kaliakoir in Gazipur. Photo: GTZ Mahtabi Zaman

Mohammed Tara Mia, owner of a rice mill at Kaliakoir in Gazipur, has achieved a milestone by increasing his work efficiency and productivity. He now boasts cutting work cycle times by half, decreasing fuel and manpower requirements and being environment-friendly.

He owes his success to the use of the rice parboiling system in his mill.

The traditional boiling system took Tara Mia eight hours to boil 450 maunds of rice, whereas the improved system takes five hours to boil the same amount. Husking of the same amount through the traditional system costs him about Tk 4,000, but the latest adoption cuts the costs to Tk 2,000.

Parboiled rice is rice that has been boiled in the husk. It makes rice easier to process by hand, improves its nutritional profile and changes its texture. Today, it is the preferred rice for many in South Asia.

Polishing rice by hand, that is, removing the bran layer, is easier if the rice has been parboiled. It is, however, somewhat more difficult to process mechanically. The bran of parboiled rice is somewhat oily, and tends to clog machinery. Most parboiled rice is milled in the same way as white rice.

Parboiling rice drives nutrients, especially thiamine, from the bran into the grain, so that parboiled white rice is 80 percent nutritionally similar to brown rice.

The starches in parboiled rice become gelatinised, making it harder and glassier than other rice. Parboiled rice takes less time to cook, and the cooked rice is firmer and less sticky.

Parboiling is a hydrothermal treatment of paddy. Parboiled rice is 'partially boiled', that is partially cooked rice. In other words, parboiling means precooking of rice within the husk. Paddy is first hydrated, then heated to cook the rice and finally dried.

The improved system was introduced by Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and German Technical Corporation (GTZ) in a combined effort.

Tara Mia, owner of Messer Russell Auto Dryer Rice Mill, said: “The main features of this developed technology are that it requires less fuel, creates less pollution, has inbuilt safety measures with safety bulb, and has pressure gauze and water level glass."

"Besides comprising indigenous equipment, it is economically viable."

Tara Mia has been using this improved parboiling system over the past year. It was a pilot project of the Sustainable Energy Development (SED) programme of GTZ.

A GTZ official said: “Although the new system is clearly more expensive (around Tk 3.5 lakh) than his previous system, the payback period of the new system is less than six months."

“If 50,000 traditional parboiling systems -- often risky -- can be successfully replaced with the new technology, it will help prevent hundreds of deaths and injuries. It will also lead to a significant increase in energy resources in a country with one of the lowest per capita energy consumption levels in the world,” said Engineer Khursheed-ul-Islam, senior adviser for the SED programme.

Similar to this project, GTZ has been implementing some more SED programmes in Khulna, with financial support of KFW, a German bank, and a few other nongovernmental organisations.

Other GTZ projects

Improved cook stoves (ICS) constitute a major SED programme in Bangladesh. Manob Sheba O Shamajik Unnayan Shangstha (MSSUS) is working with GTZ and has introduced 2,000 especially designed stoves in Khulna.

Shirin Alam, a housewife in Khulna town, uses this new stove, which helps her save cooking time. “Previously I spent four hours cooking but now I can finish cooking with in two hours,” she says. The traditional stove consumed five mounds of fuel, over two months. Now, she now consumes the same amount of fuel over three months, and to top that, it emits no black smoke.

The underlying difference between the two technologies is that the new stove has separate passages for fuel and air to enter. It also utilises coal better, because the coal burns to ashes. The improved technology also has a chimney to emit black smoke out side the home.

Around one lakh ICSs have been dispersed by SED in the last one and a half years. Bangladesh has a huge market, around 2.5 crores, for this improved stoves, said Khursheed-ul-Islam.

Germany has extended a grant of 8.6 million euros to disseminate domestic biogas units in Bangladesh. The Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL) will install 60,000 units by 2012, with 30 of their partner organisations, under KFW funding. The cost of one system varies between Tk 20,000 to Tk 38,500, depending on the actual size of the plant.

Morshed Chowdhury uses biogas for cooking, at price tag of Tk 25,000, in the company of four other households in his five-storey building at Hazi Mohsin Road, Khulna. Cow dung from eight cows is used to produce this biogas.

Bricks and cement mortar are used in constructing such an underground biogas unit. This fixed dome biogas unit is less susceptible to change due to weather than the floating dome type. It has low operation and maintenance costs and the quality of gas from the unit is similar to that of natural gas.

Saiful Islam, an alternative energy user, employs a solar energy system at his home near Muksedpur in Gopalganj, to light 11 bulbs and a fan. He spent Tk 72,000 on the solar energy system and has been using this system for the past three months. “I am bearing the investment cost by paying Tk 2,500 a month -- in installments."

The German government has extended a grant of 16.5 million euros to disseminate 3.80 lakh solar systems by 2012. IDCOL is implementing this project with its 15 partner organisations in Bangladesh and 1.20 lakh systems have already been installed.