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Improving rice recovery rather than simply increasing processing capacity could significantly raise millers' earnings, with a one-percentage-point shift from broken to whole grain potentially adding Rs 60 lakh in annual sales for a mill processing 30,000 tonnes of paddy, noted the Indian Rice Exporters' Federation (IREF).
The estimate, based on an assumed Rs 20 per kg price difference and before the cost of making the improvement, will be discussed at the Bharat International Rice Conference (BIRC) 2026, where the industry will assess ways to improve milling margins and investment returns. The session on Profitable Rice Milling: Costs, Planning and Margin Improvement is scheduled for October 24 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi as part of BIRC 2026, which will be held from October 23-25. It will examine processing methods, plant design, recovery, capacity gaps and operating costs. The opportunity is not simply to process more rice, but to retain more value from every tonne, said Deepak Goyal, Vice President (Basmati), IREF, and Director of Mahavir Rice Mill. We need to identify where new milling capacity is genuinely required and where better drying, recovery, technology or utilisation can deliver stronger returns from existing plants, he added. The conference will also reveal a model rice mill set-up cost for 2026-27, covering land and civil works, machinery, storage, drying systems, boilers, power, water, effluent management, packaging, laboratories and installation. Fixed investment, seasonal working capital and total funding requirements will be shown separately. The assessment comes against an estimated annual rice crop with an indicative wholesale value of around Rs 6 lakh crore. BIRC will examine where additional milling capacity is actually needed and where upgrading existing facilities could offer a stronger commercial case. A Department of Food and Public Distribution snapshot cited in the release recorded around 30,000 operational rice mills nationally in April 2024. The conference will examine capacity utilisation, technology mix and regional concentration to identify under-served paddy-producing areas and gaps in drying, storage, grading and finishing facilities. The event will also assess controlled drying and tempering, automated husking and whitening, optical sorting and in-line quality monitoring, with the aim of reducing avoidable losses and improving consistency. The session is expected to conclude with expert-reviewed comparisons on where businesses should invest, expand, upgrade or defer projects based on paddy availability, buyers, utilities, recovery, utilisation and funding. (ANI)
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