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Hybrid Rice opens expansion opportunity for rice milling
 
  The hybrid rice industry is creating expansion opportunities for rice millers that are replacing
antiquated milling machines with state-of-the-art equipment that can produce high-quality rice that
can gear for the export market.

With old machines aged at least 20 years, milling recovery rate in the country has been known to be
down to just 60 to 62 percent, generating lost opportunities that could otherwise raise rice production
significantly.

“In 1998, we stopped milling because we couldn’t produce good quality rice that can fight in the
market. Milling operations was not efficient,” said Engr. Herman O. Seechung II, rice miller Naga
Benmar Marketing Corp. (NBMC).

NMBC gathered the courage to embark on the investment in new milling facilities in 2004 having seen
hybrid rice’s capacity to attract a market for eaters of good quality rice. It put up a new P25 million
milling machine and built a warehouse for Pl2 million.

“People (initially) said hybrid rice is more expensive. But I challenge them to try first how hybrid rice
tastes,” Seechung said.

The modern mill, bought from Vietnam, has a capacity of six metric tons (MT) per hour compared to
the antiquated one MT per hour. It takes away chaffs from palay and turn it into a well-polished,
shiny rice and still produce a high recovery rate of 68 percent. Color sorters in modern mills remove
stones, discolored grains, and other waste from rice and thus upgrade rice to export-quality.

Henry Lim, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of SL Agritech Corp., producer of hybrid rice
seeds, said substantially-increased rice production is definitely prompting expansion in the milling
industry.

“The increase in production from hybrid rice would encourage expansion in milling. It’s only now that
we’ve experienced an increase of 1.1 million metric tons in production (as of 2004) and that is
because of hybrid,” he said.

SL Agritech has ongoing experimental work on high-quality rice after having successfully produced
over the last two to three years its SL-7, a glutinuous-aromatic rice named Jasponica for its Jasmin
(glutinous) of Thailand and Japonica (aromatic) of Japan. These too need quality millers.

The National Food Authority (NFA) has also planned an expansion of at least P3 billion in post
harvest facilities for rice including milling machines due to foreseen rice production expansion that
should reach to close to l6 million MT in two years from just 14.6 million MT as of 2004.

It is inevitable for the Philippines to invest in post-harvest facilities if it has to sustain a rice sufficiency program.

Herculano “Joji” Co, chairman of the Philippine Confederation of Grains Association (CONFED), said
that if only the Philippines can raise its milling recovery rate by five percent or equivalent to the loss
from the use of inefficient mills, then its rice production and rice sufficiency rate can be easily raised.
 
 
 



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