Use of machinery in drying and storage of boro paddy will reduce cost, labour and time
Din Mohammed Dinu and Taniul Karim Zim :
Boro rice season is going on. Farmers of Bengal are spending busy time to collect Boro paddy. This paddy harvesting will continue throughout Bengal Baishakh and Jaishthya (April, May and June). At present, the farmers of Haor and other regions are harvesting paddy easily because of reapers and combined harvesters. But the next important task after harvesting the paddy is to dry it and preserve it. But in that case the farmers have to face various problems. Many times paddy does not get enough space to dry, they are getting smaller in the yard. Meanwhile, the heat has been going on since the beginning of summer. It is becoming impossible to dry paddy in the hot sun. It is also difficult to dry the paddy by turning it over and over in the hot sun. There is no work even with an umbrella in the hot sun. Also, sudden rains can soak unprepared farmers’ paddy fields. Farmers cannot store paddy due to lack of proper drying. Paddy is also damaged by fungi and insects. About 15 percent is wasted from harvest to storage.
Which if prevented will increase food security. For this, modern agricultural machinery will be required. To solve the problem, a group of researchers from Post Harvest Loss Reduction Innovation Lab (PHLIL) of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAKRBI) worked to mechanize rice drying and storage methods. BAUSTR has developed dryers and cocoon rich five-layer hermetic bags. Paddy can be dried very easily through the dryer at any time and anywhere, sun or rain, even in the balcony of the house. Oxygen cannot enter the hermetic bag containing the airtight cocoon.
As a result, indoor insects die. Conventional storage waste is about 6 percent. Again, using a dryer reduces wastage by 2-3 percent. In that case, the use of dryers and hermetic bags will reduce wastage by about 6 percent. According to the website of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, the total production of rice in the last year 2019-20 was 3 crore 86 lakh 95 thousand 330 tons. In this case, it would have been possible to prevent about 21 lakh 21 thousand 7’19 tons of rice wastage by using machines for drying and storage.
Principal Investigator of PHLIL and Professor of Agricultural Power and Machinery Department of Bakr. Md. Manjurul Alam said that the agriculture of Bangladesh is now being transformed into modern, mechanized and commercial agriculture. Mechanization is essential to maintain productivity and market competitiveness. The use of machines for paddy planting, cutting, threshing and threshing saves about 20 percent of manual labor and time. Reduces seed and other ancillary costs by about 15 percent. We are largely behind in planting, harvesting, drying and later storage of crops. 3 thousand 20 crore development incentives for mechanization of agriculture by the government are now using transplanters for planting paddy and reapers and combined harvesters for harvesting. At present about 3 to 4 percent of paddy planting, about 10 percent of harvesting, about 2 to 3 percent of drying and only 1 to 2 percent of storage is mechanized.
So government development incentives should be utilized in these areas. We have found in research that only harvesting, threshing and drying of paddy wastes about 15 percent of paddy. In this case, it is possible to reduce wastage by 2 to 3 percent by using our invented BAUSTR dryer for drying paddy, various hermetic bags for storage and use of cocaine. In this way, we can save at least 7 million tons of paddy in the case of paddy only. By preventing this waste, we can provide food for about 49 percent of our additional population in the future. Therefore, we can ensure the food and nutrition security of the country only if we can ensure the use of advanced technology in those areas where mechanization is less.
Research Coordinator Professor Dr. Chayan Kumar Saha said about the dryer, in our country, especially during the Boro season, due to sudden rains, storms and heavy rains, the farmers have to speed up the drying of paddy. If it is not dried again, the rice is spoiled. To reduce this suffering of farmers, we have invented this dryer to dry paddy in less time, less cost and less manual labor. Also, drying in the dryer saves about 2 to 3 percent wastage compared to the traditional method.
In our LPG gas powered dryer steam is flowed through the paddy and sensors are used to control the temperature. This temperature is kept at less than 44 degrees Celsius for seed rice and 50 degrees Celsius for meal rice. Also in case of fruits and vegetables the post-harvest wastage is about 20 to 50 percent. We are also working on hybrid dryers to reduce this wastage. With the use of dryers, the farmer can dry the seasonal crops for later supply. As a result of which they can benefit financially. Besides, the supply of nutrients will also be maintained throughout the year.
(Din Mohammed Dinu, Deputy Director,Public Relations and publications & Taniul Karim Zim, Student, Bangladesh Agricultural University.)
