Gekbrong Sub-District Characteristics of Research Locations
This study described about gender, occupational status, and ownership of business as socioeconomic characteristics. Gender is the visible disparity between
male and female. It described gender of the owner of rice milling business. Occupational status described position of rice miller as job for owner. It means
rice miller can be either main or side job for owner. It measured by length of time spent in a day for owner. In this study, ownership of business described about
ownership status of place and machinery. The result showed that most of rice milling owner are male. It was about 90
95.74 percent of total respondents. Otherwise, total of female owner was only four respondents 4.26 percent. The occupational status of owner indicated that
70.21 percent of the respondent claimed rice miller as main job. The rest owners of rice miller 29.79 percent had other jobs beside rice milling business. The
other jobs were farmer, entrepreneur, teacher, and others. Mostly, rice milling businesses whether place and machinery were privately
owned. It was about 90 rice millers 95.74 percent. The rest were rent and collective. It was about 2.13 percents for each type. The socioeconomic
characteristics of rice miller can be seen on Table 8.
Table 8 Socioeconomic Characteristic of Sample Rice Milling Description
Number of Rice Milling
Percentage Gender
Male 90
95.74 Female
4 4.26
Occupational Status
Main Job 66
70.21 Side Job
28 29.79
Business Ownership
Type Private
90 95.74
Rent 2
2.13 Collective
2 2.13
Generally, rice millers had a similar function. Rice millers played role as unit that processed grain into rice. For farmers, rice millers played an important
role because in addition to hire services offered by rice millers, farmers can also sold grain produced. In study site, rice millers not only used machine for
commercial activity but also for service custom activity. So, it helped farmers who need milling service to convert grain into rice either for eating or storing.
In terms of production process, rice millers had similar activity. First, rice millers buy their input, especially grain from farmers. They purchased in two
forms, either in wet form dry grain harvest or dry form dry grain milled. If they purchased in wet form, the grain dried by the sun. It also can be done by
dryer machine, but almost all rice millers did not have dryer machine. So, almost all respondents were drying the grain manually. Process of converting grain into
rice was depicted in Figure 11.
Figure 11 Activities of Rice Miller in Changing Paddy into Rice Drying Process
Husking Process
Polishing Process Brown rice
Chaff
Broken Rice Rice bran
Rice
Figure 12 illustrated activity of rice miller in changed grain into rice. Once dry, grain was ready for milling. First, the grain was grounded by husker huller.
This machine was used to peel skin of brown rice to produced white rice. Byproduct of this process was chaff. Then, the grain was transferred to polisher.
This machine was used for polishing brown rice into white rice. Byproducts of this process were rice bran and broken rice.
In the production process, each rice miller had own combination in using machine. For example, rice millers can use husker and polisher more than one
time to obtained gloss white rice. The other example, rice millers used husker twice or more to produce more chaff. Conversely, rice millers used polisher more
than one time to generate more rice bran. This was related to byproduct produced by each machine.
In addition had similarities in the production process, there was differences about drying process and quality control of rice. First, there was no drying process
in production process of makloon type. Farmers did drying process either by using personal dryer or rice miller dryer property for free. Second, in quality control of
rice, makloon type was not concerned it because rice millers only provided milling services to farmers and had no control over the grain used. Otherwise,
non-makloon and combination type more concerned for quality of rice produced. This was due to both types had control on the grain used.