The processing of rice was identified and taken up as a problem by the Government of India in an interactive relationship with expert agricultural consultants from the Ford Foundation. But it was not until four years after the appearance of the Ford Foundation's Report on the Food Crisis and Steps to Meet it I Government of India 1959 J advocating the spatially (and socially) selective application of a technological package programme in agriculture, that the Intensive Agricultural District Programme consultancy was requested to advise the Government of India on ways and means of 'increasing practical outturn of edible rice' from paddy. Anticipating processing problems with gluts of marketed paddy they assessed the then surplus as of low quality (due to deficiencies in postharvest grain drying and storage practices) and the local huller mill technology as antiquated, high cost and unimprovable. Ignoring the little diffused under runner disc sheller technology, a comprehensive modernisation of the existing system along 'package lines' was advocated.