THE FLAT BED PADDY DRYER: A POTENTIAL RICE POSTHARVEST GAME-CHANGER
THE MODEST AND UNREMARKABLE 2-ton Flat Bed Paddy Dryer (FBPD), originally developed and introduced by the University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB) in the 1970s, and the subsequent upscaling and improvement from the original design to higher capacity versions of six tons or more by individuals and other agricultural institutions—most notably Philrice with its “Maligaya Flatbed Dryer,”—could still be the best answer to the ever-growing need to address rice postharvest losses in the rural areas of Philippines, especially during the rainy season. There is an ever-increasing void in the rice postharvest scene that the UPLB flat bed dryer or the Philrice design can fill. The 2-ton UPLB dryer can be “modernized” and the components originally used can be substituted with more durable materials to improve its efficiency. It can also be fitted with a small rice hull furnace that is now becoming more readily available, so that it will be cost-effective to operate.
Consider that even in the summer months, sun drying is progressively becoming uncertain due to erratic weather patterns brought about by climate change. Unexpected downpours occur when least expected. The proper drying of produce under the sun is now increasingly becoming untenable, contributing to poor quality and even total loss of newly harvested paddy.
There is no question that imported recirculating batch paddy dryers are efficient and sophisticated, and the quality of the grain output from these dryers is very high. However, they also require a certain level of expertise to operate and maintain. With its high level of sophistication comes a high price; these machines are very expensive, and ordinary Filipino rice farmers can only dream of owning one. In addition, most of these re-circulating batch dryers are equipped with kerosene-fired furnaces, which account for their high operating costs. They also need electricity—which does not come cheap—to function properly. Flat bed dryers, on the other hand, can be installed or built even in areas where electricity is not available using locally available materials and labor. Outfitted with any type of locally fabricated furnace that use rice hull—which is cheap and abundant all over the country—as their primary fuel, they can be operated reasonably and economically by anyone using simple instructions that can be learned in as little as a few hours or at most, a day or two.