ABSTRACT
Since rice first became a staple food product, there has been a steady and consistent effort to increase and enhance the yield, food value, and quality aspects of harvested rice as a food for human consumption. These efforts have led over the years to significant gains in all these areas. For example, improved breeding has led to sizable harvested yield increases through more productive strains, improved resistance to plant diseases, optimum plant stature, and so on. Improvements in growing and harvesting technology have resulted in better yields and quality by better insect control, efficient use of fertilizers, better harvesting techniques, and other new and improved crop-management practices. Safe storage of the harvested grain has also significantly added to the availability of an abundant and high quality rice product. In a similar fashion, the striving for higher yields and better quality has not gone unrecognized by rice processors.
