Random stops on the road to the Chittagong Hill Tracts: Rice.

The first of a few random stops on a long drive through the countryside.

Rice is the staple crop in Bangladesh. Once harvested from the fields the plants contain up to 28% moisture content which needs to be dried properly for reducing losses post-harvest.

Among the drying methods, traditional sun drying is the most common practice in Bangladesh, done so as to reduce moisture content to a safe level for storage. The wet rice is dried on the large cemented yards commonly known as chatals. Dependant upon season drying can take up to three days , with regular manual turning and movement of the husks

Toiling from the early hours until the evening an average working day of 10 hours to earn the equivalent of about £150 per month, and with three harvests a year in can be seen as gainful employment.

On this site, at least, the labourers are provided with accommodation, electricity provided but a lack of defineable sanitary provisions, not that I went looking for such things.

They do have to pay the mill owner small amounts of their wages for rent, but it beats being homeless and itinerant. They seem to be happy enough

Well except for this little chap, it must be overwhelming to see a bunch of white people jut rocking up and wandering around.

It was quite a community spanning generations, a lot of kids about. I guess the adults need to make their own enjoyment of an evening

The cones are not there to protectthe workers from the blazing sun, but to protect the rice from rain and dampness, after the removal of moisture.

At the end of the day, dried rice is raked into small heaps and covered

At just under 40 million tons being produced annually, Bangladesh is the third biggest producer of rice globally,

There are political and financial shenanigans going on with exporting rice from the country, citing domestic food security for halting exports, but how big a part does market control play in "stabilising" the market prices. Hmm!

In reality about 40% of the world's population and 90% of the popuation of Bangladesh derives most of their food intake from rice.