Modernisation of the Rice Milling Industry-Lessons from Past Performance

This paper discusses the factors that determine the efficiency of the rice milling industry. It examines the performance of the traditional rice milling industry during a recent period of free trade and shows that the spread between prices of rice and paddy was well above technologically determined milling margins. There were, besides, considerable year-to-year fluctuations in the utilisation of the effective rice milling capacity.