Rice processing business brings succor to rural women in Kano

For Malama Aina’u Muhammad, the business of processing local rice is profitable. She said though the business was going slowly because they were doing it manually with local facilities, yet they were happy that the business is going well. She told Kano Chronicle that her team of 21 women could process five bags of paddy […]

For Malama Aina’u Muhammad, the business of processing local rice is profitable. She said though the business was going slowly because they were doing it manually with local facilities, yet they were happy that the business is going well.

She told Kano Chronicle that her team of 21 women could process five bags of paddy rice in a day, saying “About 20 women are currently working in my team. All I need to do when I got a work from dealers of local rice is to invite members of the team to my house to start the job which we normally finished in five days and allow it to dry well for at least two days.”

Aina’u is one out of hundreds of women in Garko town, Garko local government area of Kano state that irk out a living from the business.

She explained that, “The processing method can take local processer between 3-5 days depending on the quantity of the rice and the number of people engaged to do the work. After boiling the rice, it will be spread under the sun for at least two days and then take it to threshing machine where the shell will be removed.

“After that, you can hire other women to join you in de-stoning and removing of the unwanted particles from the rice. And with 10 hardworking women, it will take you the whole day to complete just a bag because that is the most difficult aspect of the processes.”

She said a local miller could spent few days on the various stages of processing, but when it comes to the last stage which was de-stoning and removal of unwanted particles, she would spend days before she could finished just a bag of rice.

Rice processing has become a household business among the women folks in Garko town and its surrounding villages, Kano Chronicle, gathered. It was observed that the business is the major source of income to many women in villages around Garko town.

Further findings revealed that the business is also thriving in Dawakin Kudu and Kura local government areas, as many women are engaged in it for a living.

Hajiya Amina Inuwa is one of the popular local rice processor at Kwanar Dawaki in Dawakin Kudu local government area of the state. She told our reporter that she had been into rice processing business for five years.

She said they were processing a bag of paddy rice at the cost of N400.

The process comprised of parboiling the paddy rice, drying, threshing and de-stoning.

She said if there was availability of electricity, her 28-member team could process 58 bags of paddy rice in a day and invite other women to start the process of de-stoning which would take them some days to complete.

She said, “First we will wash the faddy rice, put it into a big drum and boil it. What we usually do at this stage is to boil it halfway around 6pm and then it will remain in the hot water till the next day. In the morning, we will remove it from the water and spread it under the sun to dry before we go for threshing.

“With exception of the threshing, which we do with machine, we do all our activities manually. In other words, we do not use any machine in all the processing steps. We will be glad if we can have some machines that can help us modernize our work. No one, including government, ever come to our aid in this respect.”

Talatu Ya’u, another local rice processor at Kwanar Dawaki told Kano Chronicle that although they do their job manually, however, it was profitable. She said from the little proceeds she was earning, she was able to buy, for her daughters, brand new sewing machines.

Asked on the areas they need government to come in, Talatu said if government could provide threshing and de-stoning machines to them that would improve the business and make it easy as well.

She said, “The problem is that such machines are expensive and we don’t have money to buy them. So, if government can assist us with such machines we will be happy because it will better up our business.”

As both married and unmarried women in Garko town and environs engage in the processing business manually, interestingly, the local women are particularly happy that the business fetches something for them to live pleasingly.