Any future sugar importation should be put on on hold, Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said on Wednesday, Dec. 20.
Millgate sugar prices have plummeted to below P2,500 per Lkg and industry leaders have blamed government’s over importation of sugar. They had hoped that prices this crop year would remain at P3,000 per Lkg.
“I hope the downward trend in (millgate sugar) prices stops and starts to go up,” Lacson said.
“I’m afraid many small farmers will be in the red if the prices continue to go down”, he said.
He does not know if the suggestion for government to buy local sugar to bring millgate prices down is possible, “I don’t know where the national government can get the funds for that”, Lacson said.
If there is really an excess inventory, government should find a way to correct the imbalance between the supply and demand,” Lacson said.
Everybody is hoping the millgate price of sugar goes back to P3,000 Lkg, Lacson said.
He pointed out that the cost of sugar production has gone up with the rise in the prices of fertilizer, labor and fuel.
“Everything is more expensive now, even labor cost,” Lacson said.
The Sugar Council, represented by three federations comprising more than half of national sugar output, on Tuesday, reiterated their call for timely government intervention amid the drop in sugar prices.
“We urgently appeal to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., through Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. and Sugar Regulatory Administrator Pablo Luis S. Azcona, to adopt measures to stop the decline in farmgate sugar prices and bring retail prices to more reasonable levels, even as the industry continues to seek ways to remain viable in the face of adversity,” the Sugar Council said.
The Sugar Council is composed of the Confederation of Sugar Producers’ Associations Inc. led by Aurelio Gerardo J. Valderrama Jr., National Federation of Sugarcane Planters headed by Enrique D. Rojas, and the Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers led by Danilo A. Abelita.*