Hulling rice by bicycle in New York City
For Randall’s Island Urban Farm, the hardest part of growing rice in New York City – much farther north than most U.S. rice growers – was hulling the grain, “nothing but pure chore,” according to “Homegrown Whole Grains.” As related in a blog at The New Yorker, the farm grows small amounts of rice so a commercial-size hulling machine was out of the question. So, it did what other small-scale growers do – it bought a pocket-size huller hand-built by Don Brill in his spare time. A bicycle provides the power.
The blog says there is handful of rice farmers in the U.S. Northeast. Small-scale, regionally based grain production could be the second phase of local food production now dominated by fruits, vegetables and livestock. “Rice, in particular, offers Northeastern farmers the opportunity to maintain environmentally important wetlands productively, rather than losing money by leaving them fallow or draining them to grow something else,” writes blogger Nicola Twilley. Photos of the bike-powered huller appear on her blog, Edible Geography.