BACOLOD CITY – As millgate prices of sugar remain almost at par with production costs, some sugar planters have already accepted the fact “we will have to bite the bullet already,” Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson disclosed recently.
Sugar millgate prices are currently reported still ranging from P2,100 to P2,200 per 50kg bag.
Lacson said it is a “double whammy” for the sugar industry, noting that not only are sugar prices down, but also production.
Sugar industry stakeholders, including farmers and millers, are urgently seeking President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s (PBBM) intervention to address plummeting sugar prices, which have fallen below production costs due to oversupply, allegedly from poor policies of the Sugar Regulatory Administration, among other factors.
We are hoping that, if it really hits us, it only hits us this year, and to continue in the following crop years, Lacson said in a press briefing.
Stakeholders are calling on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to declare a “no sugar import policy” for the next 18 months, unless domestic stocks fall below a critical threshold, and to strictly limit any imports to raw sugar for refining.
In a letter addressed to the President through the Sugar Board dated December 19, they said the sugar industry is under acute stress due to the drop in millgate prices and molasses amid excessive inventories, weak demand, rising production costs, and crop losses from adverse weather and red-striped soft scale insect infestations.
The Department of Agriculture and the SRA had earlier extended the moratorium on sugar imports until the end of harvest or further, citing stronger domestic raw sugar production and the need to prioritize locally produced sugar.
Lacson said he is still waiting to see if there is a solution to the low prices of sugar, following the resumption of milling this week.
“We will see if there is any improvement in the sugar prices. But no [SRA] sugar order was issued,” the governor said. (Gilbert Bayoran via tvds)