analysis of factors affecting rice breakage losses in guilan province

in order to identifying factors affecting milled rice breakage losses in guilan province, a research was conducted based on the descriptive survey with association of 75 rice mill owner in guilan province. factors affecting milled rice breakage losses were recognized with the delphi technique. in this regard, a descriptive questionnaire with an open-ended question was distributed among 5 rice mill owner and 3 academic staffs and experts of rice milling. results indicated that “the time of rice harvest”, “threshing the paddy with inappropriate paddy threshers or paddy combine harvesters”, the level of skill of paddy dryer operator, shortage of financial sources in order to renewing and “modifying the rice mills”, and “promoting technical knowledge of rice mill owners” were the most important factors of agronomical, technical, knowledge-skill, economical, and policy making factors, respectively. final comparison of the studied categories showed that the category of economic factors had the most impacts among all factors studied. therefore, in order to reducing the rice breakage losses in guilan province, promoting the economical basis of paddy farmers and rice mills owners were emphasized through codifying and executing supportive policies.