An Iloilo-based sugarcane planters’ group is calling on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to immediately intervene to save the Philippine sugar industry amid the drop in millgate sugar prices.
The Jalasig Sugarcane Planters Association Inc. (JSPAI) in an open letter to the president on Monday, October 20, called for “accountability, decisive governance and immediate intervention to preserve the strength and viability of the Philippine sugar industry.”
The group said that should the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) “leadership fail to arrest the situation and safeguard the integrity of local production, we respectfully urge that they step aside to allow more capable leadership to take decisive action”.
JSPAI, which has 5,666 members, warned that the livelihoods of thousands of Filipino farmers, as well as the stability of the national sugar supply, now hang in the balance.
JSPAI believes the current crisis has been aggravated by the policies and leadership of the SRA and the Department of Agriculture (DA).
“For several years, importation programs intended to address production shortfalls have instead resulted in the flooding of the domestic market, depressed farmgate prices, and chronic oversupply that carries over into succeeding crop years,” the association said.
This recurring policy failure, JSPAI added, has crippled local producers, eroded profits, and placed the sustainability of sugarcane farms and the nation’s sugar security at serious risk.
The group said that the adverse effects of previous over-importation are already being felt, despite assurances that no importation would take place during the milling season.
Local planters are being forced to sell their produce below cost, while molasses producers suffer from collapsing domestic prices due to unchecked imports, JSPAI said.
“These issues are not isolated lapses. They are a direct result of weak leadership, poor coordination, and a continuing disregard for the plight of Filipino farmers,” JSPAI said.
The association called on the SRA and DA to immediately adopt transparent, data-based, and genuinely consultative importation policies that prioritize and protect domestic producers, instead of undermining them.*