Features of the rice industry in the southern sector of Ghana: post harvest handling practices affecting quality

Abstract

This study was carried out in the major rice growing areas of Southern Ghana. The first part of the work was a survey during which rice farmers, middle women and rice mill operators were interviewed in all aspects of their respective vocations. Most of the rice grown in the south of the country was irrigated and the farmers worked on plots allocated to them by the Irrigation Development Authority. Those engaged in the marketing of the crop were mainly women who often times financed the operations of the farmers and got paid in kind. Most of the mills (84.2%) covered in the survey were small mills of capacity not exceeding 500kg. paddy (h)-1. The operators of these mills were invariably untrained and all their skills were acquired were acquired on the job. Physical and chemical quality analysis were conducted on samples of locally produced rice and compared with imported rice. While the chemical compositions of local rice were within acceptable ranges, the physical quality were very low. This was attributable mainly to poor post harvest handling on the part of farmers and middle women as well as mill operators' lack of the appropriate skills in rice milling