Abstract:
The aim of the study was to assess the effect of traditional threshing methods on the quality and marketability of rice among small holder paddy rice farmers in Budaka sub county, Budaka district. The study targeted 80 paddy rice farmers in Budaka Sub-county which comprises 4 parishes and 16 villages and these were; Chali parish (Bolosyo, Nabiketo, Chali, Izimbango), Nampangala parish (Nampangala, Nawango, Nanyuru, Bulumbi), Sapiri parish (Sapiri, namukumeri, Nansekese, Nansemenye) and Gadumire parish (Gadumire, Nabiketo, Nsawe, Namwenda). Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire, and then entered and cleaned in the Microsoft excel sheet and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the traditional paddy rice threshing methods and determine the efficiency of the threshing methods. A binary logistic model was used to determine the effects of the threshing methods on rice quality. Results show that the most preferred method was beating (83.75%) as compared to hand threshing (16.25%). The choice of the threshing method was dependent on the variety of rice grown by the farmer as from the results obtained from the field it is evident that farmers who cultivated supa variety used hand threshing method and the reason attributed to this was its un uniform maturity of rice, while those who cultivated other varieties such as kaiso, wita9 used beating method and this is due to its uniform maturity. Traditional rice threshing method preserves the natural flavors and aroma of rice. Farmers used simple tools such as tarpaulin flail/sticks, sacks, trays or pans among others in the threshing of rice. The study revealed that beating method was more efficient in terms of costs, time and labor as compared to hand threshing though it causes a significant deterioration on the quality of the grains which is not the case with hand threshing method. In conclusion, hand threshing is more efficient in terms of grain quality preservation as compared to beating method though the beating method has an advantage of being cheap in terms of costs and labor efficient as compared to hand threshing.
Despite the challenges, a lot of measures have to be employed to minimize PHLs caused as a result of use of poor threshing methods. Convenient and affordable threshing tools that are easy to operate should be made available to farmers in order to reduce human drudgery, Giving fair credit to farmers and harvesting of fully mature grains should be done by farmers as this will help in preserving grain quality and reduce grain breakage during threshing.
