A FARMERS’ group is proposing that the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) not allocate any sugar volume for export to the United States in the next crop year if the projected output will only be able to meet domestic demand.
“There is no point to allocate A sugar when we will also import the differential to satisfy the local needs.” United Sugar Producers Federation (Unifed) President Manuel Lamata said in a statement on Monday.
Lamata’s group made the statement in anticipation of the issuance of Sugar Order (SO) No. 1, which sets the policy direction for the crop year by outlining production volume allocation.
The SO 1 for crop year 2021-2022, which starts on September 1, is expected to be issued by the SRA next week.
Lamata said certain sectors in the sugar industry are “pushing for a 7 to 8 percent allocation for the US market,” which is almost the same allocation rate in the previous crop year.
“Unifed agreed to a seven percent allocation of A sugar last year. But the problem was farmers were shortchanged because the differential given was only P100 instead of the expected P400. In other words, somebody made money, but it was not the farmers,” he said.
Lamata noted that scrapping A sugar allocation for a crop year has been done in the past, particularly when sugar output could not meet domestic demand for the sweetener.
“It has been done, and we are asking SRA to do it again and prioritize the local market,” he said.
Unifed also urged the SRA to release immediately its crop estimates for the next crop year. The SRA’s crop estimates serve as the basis of various industry groups, including producers and millers, for their proposed allocation for the upcoming crop year.
“This has to be conducted immediately and we urge the SRA to check on sugar balances of the mills so we can come up with accurate data,” he said.
“Sugar mills have already opened, yet we have yet to hear from SRA as to their projection for this crop year,” he added.
At the start of the current crop year 2020-2021, the SRA allocated 7 percent of sugar production for US exports, but later on scrapped it and allocated all volume for the domestic market due to lower-than-expected supply output.
The country’s sugar output as of August 1 stood at 2.138 million metric tons (MMT), slightly lower than the 2.145 MMT recorded in the same period of last year. SRA’s last projection for total output in the crop year 2020-2021 was at 2.101 MMT, a downward revision from its earlier estimate of 2.19 MMT.