Written by the Web Team
The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) launched the National Year of Rice (NYR) in the Visayas during the Foundation University’s Rice is Life Dumaguete Adventure Marathon, Nov. 18. 
Lighting the lanterns shaped into NYR logo, PhilRice executive director Eufemio T. Rasco Jr. said the logo’s colors, red, blue, and yellow, also the Philippine flag colors, symbolize the nationalism embedded in the campaign.
The colors also represent the producers, consumers, and policy makers who are the prime movers in increasing rice productivity and reducing rice wastage.
While the last decade had focused on strategies aiming to increase rice production to achieve rice self-sufficiency, Rasco said NYR intends to campaign for healthier rice consumption.
“Rice self-sufficiency is a function of production and consumption. If rice consumption exceeds production, then there is negative sufficiency [in rice],” Rasco said.
The campaign promotes healthier diet through eating brown rice, reducing rice consumption into a cup per meal, and trying other staples such as camote, banana, and potato as substitute to rice.
Meanwhile, Hazel V. Antonio, NYR project leader, said the Rice is Life Dumaguete Adventure Marathon is an appropriate event to launch the campaign in the Visayas because of the marathon’s advocacy for rice conservation.
More than 3,000 runners had pledged to conserve rice and support the campaign tagline, Sapat na Bigas, Kaya ng Pinas.
Foundation University also organized a cookfest, in which rice recipes from entrees to desserts were prepared by participants all over Negros Oriental.
