Comparative Analysis of the Technical Performance of Selected Rice Mills in Bida, Niger State

Abstract

This study was carried out to compare the technical performance of some selected rice milling machines in Bida, in terms of the milling capacity, milling recovery, head rice recovery and broken grains. The rice milling machines used for the study were the NCRI-Nigeria developed steel friction mill with aspirator, a local steel friction mill without aspirator and a Chinese-TORA rubber roller mill. Three rice varieties (an improved cultivar and two local cultivar): Faro44, Babanyagi and Ndawodzufagi (long, medium and short grain types respectively) were parboiled under the same conditions and used for the test. The test was replicated three times for accuracy. It was observed that the Chinese-rubber roll mill performed better compared to the other mills. The Chinese-rubber roll mill had the highest percentage milling recovery of 68.33% - 69.73%, percentage head rice of 62.06% - 68.4% and minimal percentage of broken grains compared to the friction mills. The NCRINigeria mill had a percentage milling recovery of 63.37% - 67.07% and percentage head rice recovery of 53.63% - 58.23%. The Local mill had a percentage milling recovery of 59.07% – 62.40% and percentage head rice recovery of 51.10% - 55.23%. However, the rubber roll mill had the least average milling capacity compared to the other mills.