St. Joseph Modern Rice Mill

We run the St. Joseph Modern Rice Mill down in Vannappuram, which is part of the Idukki district. It’s a beautiful area with a lot of greenery around us. The mill itself is quite loud when the machines are running, so we spend a lot of our time shouting over the noise to hear each other. We process rice for the local community and the farmers in the surrounding hills. It’s a messy job sometimes with the dust and the chaff flying everywhere. We have to keep the machines well-oiled and clean so they don't break down in the middle of a big batch. We’ve been here in Vannappuram for a long time, and the locals know the sound of our mill starting up in the morning. We don't have a fancy office; we just have a small corner with a desk where we handle the payments and receipts. Most of the space is taken up by the big processing units and the bags of paddy waiting to be milled. During the harvest season, we work long hours, sometimes late into the night, to get everything finished. It’s rewarding to see the clean white rice coming out the other end after all that work. We just take it one day at a time, keeping the equipment running and making sure the farmers get their rice back in good condition.