For Filipinos, rice completes a meal. We love rice so much that we each consume an average of 110 kg of it per year. As the seventh highest rice-consuming country in the world, we spend 16-37 percent of our daily household food budgets on rice. Rice prices influence inflation rates and policy decisions, becoming a key barometer not just of our economy, but also of our political well-being.
With farm gate prices now at a low P15.96/kg, and an average production cost of P12 per kilo, farmers who produce 4,000 kg/harvest barely make P4,000/month. This is below the food poverty threshold of P7,337/month set by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). It is no surprise, then, that families who depend on agriculture suffer higher rates of undernutrition and food insecurity.
How can we help the Filipino farmer?
Read the full article by Dr. Cecilia Acuin, IRRI Senior Scientist for Human Nutrition, via this link.
Learn more on how rice can help in achieving #ZeroHunger. Visit our special #WorldFoodDay2019 page.