Seven million pesos worth of rice are wasted by every person yearly, the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) said on Thursday.

During the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing, Karen Eloisa Barroga, deputy executive director for Development of Department of Agriculture DA-PhilRice based on their latest data "two tablespoons of rice is wasted by every person daily".

"If it is computed, that would be costing around seven million pesos for a year," she said.

Barroga said the rice wastage, which can reach 384 metric tons per year, "could already feed 2.5 million Filipinos".

To prevent rice wastage, Barroga said the government encourages a half cup serving of rice in restaurants.

"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," she said.

"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 to prevent wastage," she added. Robina Asido/DMS