Approaching the end, we saw an under-construction pucca building, and immediately realised we had reached our destination. A new pucca building in the village, amidst traditional houses, means the owner is doing better than others.  Just in front of the building in a shed, two women were working with two dhekis, also called husking pedals in English. But Should we call them husking ‘pedals’? Because no one was actually stepping on the dhekis to operate them. Rather, these were automatic, running on electricity. A rare sight indeed. 

Shofikul Islam, the man we were visiting, built these electric dhekis during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he left the city for his village home. A CSE (computer science and engineering) graduate from a public university, Shofik has now turned into an innovator and businessman who aims to ensure safe food and nutrition for his customers. He collects ganjia paddy (a particular rice variety) from the shoals of Jamuna River, which is not very far, husks the paddy with the electric dhekis, and delivers them to his customers all around the country. Currently, Shofik supplies three to 3.5 tonnes of rice every month, among other food items. And the demand is growing. An estimated 60 ft by 20 ft netted shed, previously used as a poultry farm shed, is now Shofik’s factory cum storage cum office. On a partitioned side, the dhekis are running, with two women pushing the paddy under it, and then, with the help of a winnowing fan, they separate the chaff from the grains to prepare them for packaging. On the other part of the shed, basically the storage, dozens of jute sacks full of mostly unhusked ganjia paddy (and a smaller amount of BRI-28, another rice variety) are stacked. There is a table and a couple of chairs in one corner along with a display of food items that Shofik sells. 

Also, you cannot miss the wi-fi router, an equipment central to his online business operations. The mobile phone network is not very strong in the area, but thankfully there is broadband internet connection, facilitating smooth online operations for SOA Bangladesh, the proprietary firm owned by Shofikul Islam. How did a computer engineer end up in a food grain business? We were curious. Turns out, food safety was a great motive behind this. “There is hardly any food scarcity nowadays in the country. We get to eat all sorts of foreign and local fruits all the time, yet, people have weak health and all kinds of diseases. This led me to thinking, there must be something wrong with what we eat,” Shofikul Islam told The Business Standard.

“About 80 percent of an average Bangladeshi man’s food consists of rice. So, I thought if I could make rice risk-free, it could solve 80 percent of the problem,” he added. Shofik found out that farmers in the char areas produce native varieties of rice, they hardly use any fertiliser as the Aman rice; ganjia in this case, is cultivated after the monsoon flood naturally fertilises the land. Moreover, they do not have to use any pesticide for this native variety, Shofik told us. Ganjia is a red rice variety. Red rice is considered to have more nutritional value than other rice varieties, with more iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc. The rice gets digested slowly and the energy is also released slowly, making it suitable for diabetic patients, as this causes a slower increase in blood sugar levels. Red rice also contains high antioxidant levels. When red rice is husked with a dheki, the nutritional value remains intact. On the other hand, commercial millers make white rice by removing its husk, bran, and germ, followed by machine-polishing. This alters the flavour, texture and appearance of the rice and makes it more desirable for the appearance-loving customer. Much of rice’s nutritional value is lost in the process.

However, for some customers, Shofik also processes brown rice such as BRI-28. This rice, too, is husked with the dheki to keep its nutritional value intact. Shofik had initially started husking rice with traditional (manual) dheki, but finding manpower to operate dhekis was hard, as it required much physical toil. It was then that he started thinking about making an electric dheki. It took more than eight months to make a functioning machine. Md Mostofa, Shofik’s neighbour, witnessed his passion for it.

“His patience is beyond description. He failed many times, but never gave up. He kept trying for many months until success showed up,” Mostofa told TBS. Shofik said the design of the electric dheki was inspired by a childhood toy: a dragging drum car.  After seeing Shofik’s success, others are also setting up electric dhekis in neighbouring districts. Shofik himself set up one for an entrepreneur in Rangpur. More entrepreneurs are contacting him for such dhekis. The motivation is simple: dheki-husked rice fetches a better price as health consciousness is rising. Many online traders are now collecting dheki-husked rice from Shofik and selling in their outlets, mostly online. Although there are two dhekis in Shofik’s factory right now, two more are underway, trying to keep up with the increasing demand. Along with rice, Shofik also sells native mustard oil extracted in wooden mills, as well as pure honey, barley powder and millet collected from char areas.