Drying remains the key problem.

 Martin Gummert (GTZ, Indonesia) declares that paddy

drying is the problem in rice post-harvest. Drying notes Martin, is much more difficult compared
to farm automation because use of mechanical dryers often requires adaptation of technology
into an existing post-harvest system. Further, the drying process is a complicated process
involving air and crop properties, which require a deep knowledge of the process. It is a
challenge to engineers and as a result so many have been involved in seeking solutions that
there are many prototypes of dryer which work technically in the labs. Martin adds that users of
the newly designed dryers have not continued their use for various reasons. This is not due to
lack of research on the topic; perhaps the problem analysis has not been satisfactory. IRRI,
NARS, ACIAR projects have done a tremendous job of studying the drying behaviour of rice
under diverse conditions and settings, promoting recent discussions around the question of
where to do the drying: on the farm, with farmers' groups, at commercial mills, or at government
rice marketing centres. Occasionally there is demand for certain dryers by farmers or private
sector groups, without government subsidy. Cases include Dr Hien's flatbed dryers in Vietnam,
Dr Somchart's fluid bed dryer in Thailand, the IRRI/GTZ-UAF low temperature SRR farm dryer
in Vietnam, the recirculating Taiwan made dryers used by millers in the Philippines. The lesson
seems to be that there is a place for both small scale and large-scale dryers. There are
advantages to using dryers in the private sector; and, fitting the millers needs and modes of
operation is more important to them than the "state-of-the-art" technology. The quest for an
ultimate universal technology which seems so important in the scientific community, where each
research group competes and promotes its own solution, is the wrong approach. Martin finds it
more sensible to look at drying problems at all levels and circumstances, and identifies specific
technical solutions for them within the systems context. This requires a database of different
drying technologies.