Nagra Rice & General Mills

Nagra Rice & General Mills is tucked away in Village Ikolaha. It is a small place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. We have a couple of sheds where we keep the grain and the milling equipment. It’s nothing special to look at, just a functional workplace. Most of the time, the air is thick with the smell of dry husks. It’s a smell you get used to after a week or two. We spend a lot of time cleaning the filters and greasing the joints of the machines. If one thing breaks, the whole line stops, so we are always watching for trouble. We don’t have a website or any of those modern things. If someone needs us, they just drive down to the village and find us. We work according to the seasons. When it’s busy, we are here from dawn until late at night. When it’s slow, we spend our time fixing up the building and doing maintenance. It’s a hard way to make a living, but it’s what we know. The local farmers are our main source of grain, and we’ve known most of them since we were kids. It’s a community effort, really. We just provide the place and the tools to get the rice ready. It is simple work, but it keeps the village going. Most of us grew up around here, so the mill feels like a second home, even with all the noise.