post-harvest season

While on the road trip to Rizal province, my brother noticed that rice plants in adjacent fields were at different stages of development (I was actually pointing them out to him while he drove). Some fields had plants that were still just leaves; other fields had plants that had flowers already. Then there were the fields that had just been harvested. 

The grains that had been harvested and threshed were now laid onto the road -- the national highway, in fact -- to dry before these would be dehulled, milled, and then either sold to markets or delivered directly to the household's granary. 

The farmers who decide to dry the grains on the road must be doing this because (1) they don't have access to a drying facility; (2) if they do, they still prefer to dry grains on the road because it is tradition. However, these farmers probably don't realize that by drying the grains too fast under intense heat, they are actually damaging the grains. Stress cracks form, leading ultimately to lots of broken grains. Also, by being on the roads the grains at risk of being run over by vehicles, adding more broken grain to the already broken grain. 

With most people (in the country) preferring to eat whole rice grains, harvests with a high percentage of broken grain command lower prices in the market... if they are going to be sold in the market. If these will be kept exclusively for household consumption, then it doesn't matter as much.