I have been in the rice production industry for such along time and had been to the Rice plantations producing areas of Tanganyika from Kilosa, Kilombero, Shinyanga and Mbeya and I found still we are very far behind from harvesting, drying and filling tje bags, there are very young school drop outs who are porters who they pick a 10 debe (135kg) gunia on their shoulders.
Very few farmers who can afford havesters, very few farmers who have storage farcilities or granaries. Logistic access is very poor we most of the time lend them cash or send our trucks to pick up the produces to our storage sheds where the have to pay on credit untill when they are ready to sell.
In the processing facilities very few owners have the new tech processing line.
They cannot even afford to buy a grading machine or filling machine or even moisture content analyser. There is no single factory that uses conveyor system. Automation has the negative side of creating more un employment my friend.