00:00 Rice is the staple food without which Filipinos will literally starve.
00:04 But eating too much of it leads to excess carbs and fat the body can't do without.
00:09 Hence, a push is on for a half cup serving of rice to be available in all restaurants and food joints nationwide.
00:16 As our Alan Francisco details in this report.
00:20 The nation celebrates National Rice Awareness Month this November.
00:25 Its goal is to achieve rice efficiency and address malnutrition and poverty in the country.
00:31 Alongside this, the Philippine Rice Research Institute or PHILRISE of the Department of Agriculture
00:36 advocates a half rice policy to prevent wastage of rice.
00:41 This campaign started in 2013 and was reintroduced last year extending until 2028.
00:47 Based on their study, 7 million pesos worth of rice is wasted every year
00:52 which could feed 2.5 million Filipinos.
00:55 To minimize unnecessary waste, the half rice option in restaurants and eateries is crucial.
01:01 In fact, according to PHILRISE, more than 40 ordinances from different places in the country
01:07 offer half rice in their establishments and they plan to expand this initiative.
01:11 They will push for this in the Senate and also conduct consultations with the business sector.
01:16 PHILRISE emphasizes the importance of only taking the amount of rice one can consume in one sitting or one meal time.
01:24 This time we are involving the consumers.
01:26 Because rice is our staple food, it's important that it's not just a matter of technology push
01:34 that the farmers produce rice.
01:38 But also the consumers, they have a role to play by avoiding wastage in our food
01:46 and doing that is also very helpful for our health.
01:50 PHILRISE also highlights the support of consumers in choosing locally produced rice to help our own farmers.
01:56 That's one of the reasons why their income is low.
01:59 They only get 49% of consumer prices and their income is low because of that.
02:06 So if we buy rice for 50 pesos, they get less than 25 and their inputs are reduced so almost nothing is left.
02:15 So we encourage them to sell milled rice.
02:18 Now of course, for them to buy milled rice, we have to encourage the consumers to buy their products directly.
02:24 Simultaneously, PHILRISE is advocating for brown rice and adlai, both known to be more nutritious.
02:31 One of their initiatives is to lower the price of brown rice through increased supply.
02:36 We have 80 adlai collections conserved at our gin bank.
02:39 And then we are profiling their nutritional characteristics and photo documentation of the variety.
02:49 All the data needed so that we can have more of the adlai varieties available.
02:54 So that's the effort we are doing in our research.
02:58 It's already helping even with rice, but it's a good additional staple for us.
03:05 So what we did is we ratioed the brown rice to white rice.
03:09 One of the hindrances is the price.
03:13 The target market for brown rice is the middle to upper class.
03:19 So we tried it and the volume increased.
03:22 Alan Francisco for the Nation.
03:24 short.
Comments