Training workshop report on capacity building of women processors in improved parboiling technology in twenty communities in the Tamale Metro District of the Northern region of Ghana

Abstract

Twenty (20) rice processing groups were drawn from the Tamale Metropolitan District of the Northern Region of Ghana for the three (3) half-day Training Workshop on improved rice parboiling technology. The objective of the training was to strengthen the capacities of the target groups to enable them adopt improved rice processing techniques to consistently produce high quality parboiled rice. The participants were trained on rice secondary post-harvest operations covering winnowing, sorting, parboiling, drying, milling and basic business economic models for increased profitability. All the operations were examined closely with respect to the participants’ traditional/current practices and the advantages and disadvantages associated. The participants were taken through the available primary post-harvest technologies (manual or mechanized) that are in use and their effects on quality of rice. The unit operations in the parboiling process were examined in order to perceive the effect they could have on the final quality of the product. Critical unit operations that affect quality such as thorough washing to remove immature grains, hot soaking, steaming and drying were emphasized. Participants were also taken through practical sessions of the post-harvest operations to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the technologies that were introduced to them. Packaging, labelling and marketing of rice were also discussed. Additionally, the various attributes of quality rice (raw and cooked) were discussed in depth in a bid to make participants quality conscious in their operations as processors. The role each of the actors in the value chain (farmers, processors, millers and marketers) can play to ensure availability of quality rice was also examined