BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Sugar planters in Negros Occidental are beginning to feel the effect of Sugar Regulatory Administration’s (SRA) Sugar Order No. 3 (SO3) allowing sugar importation – sharp drop in sugar prices. They are demanding that the order be recalled.
SO3 was issued on Feb. 4, and just two days after, sugar bidding closed with all mills and sugar groups losing from P99.12/Lkg to P230/Lkg at Victorias Milling Company (VMC), according to Atty. Dino Yulo, former SRA Board member.
Prices of different mills and associations showed that the end of January, raw sugar prices was at P2,110/Lkg in VMC; P1,981 for APSSI Hawaian and AHSSI Hawaian; P1,973 for First Farmers; P1,920 at Lopez Sugar Central; P1,898 for AALCPI-URC La Carlota; P1,885 for BIPA-Biscom; and P1,865 for SONEDCO (Kabilog).
By Feb. 6, after the announcement of SO3, sugar prices dropped at VMC to P1,880 or a difference of P230/Lkg, followed by BIPA-Biscom down by P150; ALCCPI-URC La Carlota down by P145; Lopez Sugar Central fell by P140; SONEDCO (Kabilog) down by P130; AAHSI-Hawaian and First Farmers lost by a little over P121; while APSSI-Hawaian had a drop of P99.12.
Yulo attributed the huge drop to “the premature announcement” of SRA’s Administrator Hermenigildo Serafica, adding that “in most cases he knew that this will have an immediate effect on sugar pricing.”
Yulo added that a drop by as much as 10 percent has a huge impact on the livelihood of small sugar farmers that comprises more than 80 percent of sugar producers.
“These small farmers are barely surviving due to the high cost of farm inputs, particularly fertilizers and fuel that have been increasing steadily each week. And will now suffer more because of this drop in sugar prices,” he said.
Associacion de Agricultores de la Carlota y Pontevedra Inc. (AALCPI), the biggest independent sugar group in the country with over 10,000 planter-members (mostly small planters) decried the results of the sugar bidding last weekend as artificially driven down by the announcement of SO3.
AALCPI president Roberto Cuenca said they are hard-pressed to explain to their members the results of the sugar bidding last week, vis-à-vis their members’ request for SRA to act on their appeal for a price freeze on farm inputs.
“This made the situation worse because since last year, we have appealed to the SRA, the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) yet there has been no action. Instead, SRA released SO3 knowing that we are in the peak of the milling season,” Cuenca added./PN
