The Sugar Regulatory Administration announced on Thursday, Dec. 21, that no further sugar importation will take place, and that government is seriously considering directly buying sugar from farmers to arrest the drop in farmgate prices.
SRA Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona’s announcement douses speculation that more sugar imports are coming.
“Based on the current demand figures there is no apparent need to import any sugar,” he said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is aware of the sugar industry’s problem and is on top of it, he said.
“If there is really an oversupply of sugar, its retail prices should have dropped also,” Azcona said.
Sugar industry leaders have attributed the drop in farmgate prices to P2,500 per Lkg and lower to an oversupply of imported sugar. They have also pointed out that while farmgate prices have dropped retail prices of sugar remain high.
Azcona said government is seriously considering buying sugar directly from farmers at higher prices early next year to boost farmgate prices. Sugar is currently being purchased by traders, some of whom industry stakeholders claim have been manipulating prices.
Government will buy sugar directly from the farmers at a higher price, to be sold to consumers at a lower prices, Azcona said.
Azcona said government funds are available for the direct buying plan, they are just working on the mechanics for its implementation.
Azcona said he has also written to the United States Department of Agriculture to request that the Philippines be included in the US sugar quota.There are producers and traders who have volunteered to provide the sugar to fill a US sugar quota allocation granted the Philippines, he said.
Azcona said all of the previous sugar importation where based on available data at the time, none of the imports were made in haste or without basis.
“The only problem that we’ve seen so far is the historical numbers for demand or withdrawals (of sugar) has actually dropped significantly,” Azcona said.
The drop has been about 20 percent for raw sugar and about 11.5 percent for refined sugar, which he cannot explain, Azcona said.
He also noted that there a lot of farmers complaining of lower sugar yield this crop year.*