Unlimited rice

THE statistics are staggering. According to the International Rice Research Institute, the Philippines wastes more than 300,000 tons of rice annually. This translates to a cost of more than P20 million a day, or about P8 billion annually.

To put this in the proper perspective, the annual volume of rice wastage is equivalent to a third of rice imports, an issue that is fraught with political, economic and even health considerations. All this because Filipinos, on the average, are said to waste three tablespoons of rice every day.