1In many parts of the world, rice is the main grain.
2In fact, it is a food staple for nearly half of the planet's population.
3Native to Asia, it has been grown and consumed for thousands of years.
4But today, machines do much of the harvesting and processing
5in order to feed the enormous demand.
6These perfectly formed kernels of rice are essentially a crop that has been allowed to go to seed.
7After about 150 days of growth, the rice seed is ready for harvest.
8Machinery strips it from the stalks and also suctions out some of the empty husks.
9Trucks transport the rice to storage facilities.
10They empty it into a grated opening at the receiving pit.
11The grates filter out some of the larger stalks and debris.
12From the pit, a chain conveyor moves the rice up to storage silos and into warehouses.
13Inside the storage facilities, fans blow air through the mountain of rice
14to lower the moisture content substantially.
15With the rice sufficiently dried, it's on to the processing plant.
16Here, a probe vacuums up samples from both the front and the back of the massive truckload.
17The probe delivers the samples to a lab.
18A technician first tests the moisture content to confirm that it's on target.
19He then transfers batches to a sifting pan to screen for bugs.
20He switches on a heat lamp to wake them up.
21He shakes the rice and scrutinizes it.
22He also examines the tray underneath for tiny bugs that may have fallen through the holes.
23If he finds just one moth or beetle,
24the entire 5500-pound truckload of rice will be rejected.
25Next, the rice falls through perforations in rolling cylinders,
26screening out the straw, which spills over the side.
27The next machine sifts out the remaining straw bits and any weed seed.
28It also suctions out empty rice husks.
29They're lightweight and pulled out with a weak vacuum.
30Finally, they remove mud balls.
31Free of contaminants, the rice now spills between two rubber rollers,
32one moving faster than the other.
33This shears off the husks.
34The rice and empty husks then cascade into another machine.
35This is a demo version of the actual production one.
36Weak suctioning pulls out the husks to separate them from the heavier rice.
37The de-husking process misses a few kernels,
38so next, giant sifting machines screen out that rice
39Still in husks, it's bigger and doesn't pass through the holes in the shaking trays.
40They de-husk that rice and mix it with the rest.
41Grinding machines now mill the rice to remove the bran.
42The bran spills out of perforations and is recovered for use in cattle feed.
43With the bran removed, the rice goes from brown to white.
44The final grinding polishes the rice to give it a pearly sheen.
45This is the unmilled brown rice,
46and here it is with the bran removed.
47During milling, some rice kernels are damaged.
48This spinning dimpled cylinder now separates the broken kernels from the whole ones.
49The broken rice kernels fall into the dimples of the cylinder
50and from there into an internal catch pan.
51They'll be used to make cereal or beer.
52The whole rice now moves through a color sorter.
53Computerized cameras analyze it for dark imperfections
54and signal air nozzles to blast them out of the mix.
55Of course, there's also a market for unmilled brown rice.
56Now ready for packaging,
57a scraper moves it across a table and into plastic tubes below.
58Hot jaws seal the tubes at both ends,
59and this rice is in the bag.
60Brown or white, short or medium grade,
61there are plenty of options.