Business

The United Sugar Producers Federation is hopeful that the courts will see the merit of their argument to issue a permanent Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the Sugar Order No. 3 issued by the Sugar Regulatory Administration, UNIFED President Manuel Lamata said Sunday, February 27.They have been informed that the courts will issue the decision by March 4 as their TRO will expire on March 6, he said.“We are hoping for a favorable ruling for another extension of the TRO or make it permanent,” Lamata said.UNIFED director, Joseph Edgar Sarrosa, who filed the case as president of the Rural Sugar Planters Association Inc., a member association of UNIFED, said “we had a productive discussion and we remain positive about this entire exercise.”If they will not get another TR...

Bayan Muna representatives have filed a resolution urging the House Committee on Agriculture and Food to conduct an investigation into the plan of the Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Sugar Regulatory Administration to import 200,000 metric tons of sugar at the height of the sugar harvest season.“While the country is still in the midst of sugar harvests and milling season, the DA’s decision to import refined sugar impedes the interest of our the local sugar producers and poses a threat to our sugar industry,” Bayan Muna representatives Eufemia Cullamat, Carlos Isagani Zarate and Ferdinand Gaite said in House Resolution 2495.They pointed out that on February 8 the SRA issued Sugar Order No. 3 allowing the importation of 200,000 MT of sugar because of an alleged shortage ca...

Capitol photoGov. Eugenio Jose Lacson and Department of Education officials signed a partnership agreement for the establishment of farm schools in Negros Occidental at the Capitol Social Hall in Bacolod City, Tuesday, February 22.Lacson said there is a law that requires the establishment of farm schools and they will initially start with grade seven students and gradually move up to grade 12.The DepEd will identify the schools and the provincial government will provide technical and financial support, the governor said.It is important to encourage more young people to stay in agriculture because the population is growing and there will be more people to feed, Lacson said.There is a need to establish avenues of learning suited to the needs and realities of the rural agr...

The Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations is urging the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to reconsider Sugar Order No. 3 that allows the importation of 200,000 metric tons of sugar and to make appropriate revisions that would be responsive to the interest of its stakeholders.The sugar industry in particular, and Philippine agriculture in general, are seeing drastic surges in the cost of agricultural inputs, such as fuel and fertilizer, CONFED said in a press statement Friday, February 18.“But instead of coming up with measures to buoy up prices of domestic sugar and seeking ways to keep production costs at bay, SRA is going the other way,” the CONFED statement said.Sugar Order No. 3 has already pulled down the prices of sugar by more than P200 per bag and it comes ...