Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson on Wednesday, Oct. 28, said he hopes the buying price of sugar hits ₱3,000 per 50-kilogram bag to enable farmers to survive.
“We cannot compel the traders to buy at the price we want [but] we are hoping they understand the situation” and are more compassionate, he said.
This crop year, the country is estimated to produce 1.6 million metric tons of sugar, and he hopes the farmers can average ₱3,000 per LKg to make it sustainable, Lacson said.
At ₱2,600 per bag, even efficient farms will just break even, so you can imagine what will happen to small farmers, he added.
The good sign is that recent events show the sugar industry has united against the importation of sugar, he said.
“I hope the unity among the sugar leaders will continue,” Lacson added.
The Sugar Council and labor groups earlier called on the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to urgently address sugar mill-gate prices, warning that current market rates are below production costs and threaten the survival of local farmers.
Market data from the first weeks of October shows average raw sugar mill-gate prices in Negros Occidental hovering at around ₱2,600 per 50-kilogram bag (LKg), they said in a joint press statement.
The group is now pushing for a baseline mill-gate price of at least ₱2,900 per LKg to help planters cover surging expenses for fertilizer, fuel, hauling, and farm labor.
“The current price, in our opinion, reflects an unreasonable gap between prevailing retail prices for raw sugar (a low of ₱73 per kilo or ₱3,650 per bag) versus offered price of ₱2,600 per bag or equivalent to ₱52 per kilo,” they said in the joint press statement.
“The ₱1,050-per-bag disparity between retail and mill-gate prices reveals an exorbitant price gap that remains difficult to justify, even after accounting for the legitimate margins of traders, wholesalers, repackers, and retailers,” the statement added.*
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