Bacolod City – The National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NFSP) recently sought the help of Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel to address the challenges confronting the industry, specifically the decline in sugar prices.
In a meeting on January 9 in Manila, NFSP president Enrique Rojas and other sugar industry leaders requested Laurel for government intervention to correct the scenario which caused the drop in sugar prices.
“Current sugar prices are a far cry from the level of sugar prices last crop year. Prices now hover at around P2,400 to P2,500 per bag, which is much lower than the more than P3,000 per bag last crop year. The prevailing sugar prices can hardly compensate for the hard work, financial investments, and the risks taken by farmers to produce their crop,” Rojas said in a statement.
“On behalf of our planter-members, majority of whom are small farmers, we have to do something to protect them from these almost disastrous price levels. That’s why our Federation decided to bring this matter directly to the attention of Sec. Laurel to ask him for government intervention to stop the decline in sugar prices,” he added.
Data from the Sugar Regulatory Administration show that the majority of refined sugar withdrawals are imported sugar, while only a small portion are domestic sugar. At some point, the ratio between imported and domestic sugar withdrawals was almost 70% to 30% in favor of imported sugar.
The abundance of, and preference for imported sugar dampened the demand for raw sugar, consequently causing the drop in sugar prices. Unless this over importation issue is addressed, farmers will continue to suffer from low sugar prices, and government should intervene to ensure that this does not happen again, Rojas explained.
He added that Sec. Laurel was receptive to the industry’s concerns.
“Being a businessman himself, the Agriculture Secretary understood the plight of the sugar farmers, and he promised that his office will come up with concrete proposals which he will discuss with the sugar leaders and the Sugar Regulatory Administration during our next meeting,” Rojas further said.
When SRA was planning to import sugar last crop year, sugar leaders recommended a conservative figure of approximately 250,000 MT to 300,000 MT. However, SRA decided to import 440,000 mt, followed by the almost 64,000 MT importation under the Minimum Access Volume (MAV), and added another 150,000 MT importation towards the end of last crop year, the NFSP president said.
Rojas pointed out that the over importation, coupled with the bad timing of the arrival of the imports during milling season, caused the drop in sugar prices, which greatly harmed sugar farmers. (Gilbert Bayoran via The Visayan Daily Star (TVDS), photo courtesy of TVDS)