Be RicePonsible TOTAL RICE WASTED WHILE EATING ENOUGH TO FEED 2-M FILIPINOS

When we were young, our grandfather, Jose, ordered us to clean up our plates and not to leave even just a morsel of rice.

As kids, we did not quite understand why.

We just thought that he was an overly strict old man who made life difficult for us his grandchildren.

As I am confronted with statistics on food wastage now, I have realized how correct my grandfather was in asking us not to waste any food.

Here is a portion of a study conducted by Lotis E. Mopera of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, Food Science Cluster, College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines Los Baños titled “Food Loss in the Food Value Chain: The Philippine Agriculture Scenario.”

“In highly populated region of Southeast Asia, like the Philippines, agricultural production and post- harvest handling and storage are stages in the food supply chain identified with relatively high food losses.

“More than 40% of food losses occur during the production, postharvest, and processing stages.

“The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) reported that during postharvest in the Philippines, the physical rice losses can reach 15% (IRRI, 2015). In the pro- duction process, water, fertilizers, labor, seeds, fuel, and other agricultural inputs are also wasted.

“The Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST), on the other hand, reported that each Filipino wasted an average of 3.29 kg/year of rice alone (FNRI-DOST, 2008).

“The estimated rice wastage was 296,869 metric tons (MT), which accounted for 12.2% of the year’s rice imports.

“The loss amounted to 7.3 billion pesos in terms of rice alone. This excludes the other kinds of food and resources wasted.

“With that same amount, more than 2 million Filipinos could have been fed.”

I hope this post will make us realize that the food we waste could actually feed 2% of Filipinos today.

#HwagSayanginAngKanin! #StopTableLosses! #CleanUpYourPlates!