THE Department of Agriculture - Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) said that two tablespoons of rice are wasted per person on a daily basis.

"Ang data po namin, well it’s actually two tablespoons of rice wasted by every person daily… a day," Dr. Karen Barroga, deputy executive director of DA-PhilRice said.

"That would be costing around seven million pesos... Seven million for a year," she also said.

She said that it could feed 2.5 million Filipinos.

Barroga said the public is being encouraged to get only the amount of rice that they need. 

"Marami kasi… iyong sabi nga natin ‘takaw-mata’. So we are… actually the campaign says, get only what you need and what we have done in the past was to encourage a half cup serving as default," Barroga said. 

"And some of the provinces actually and cities, restaurants in the cities and provinces partnered with us to make sure that we could have a default serving of half cup of rice para hindi sayang iyong ano… maiwasan natin ang wastage," she added. 

The Philippines is celebrating the National Rice Month Awareness every November pursuant to Presidential Proclamation No. 524 signed on January 5th, 2004.

It carried a theme, “Be RICEponsible," the National Rice Awareness Month is being spearheaded by the DA and its attached agency, PhilRice.