
The sugar industry is getting a fresh start in 2025 with stakeholders uniting behind a move of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to stabilize sugar prices.
“This coming together, shows we are off to a good start this year and both the DA and the SRA hope that this enthusiasm from our industry stakeholders will continue,” SRA Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona said on Thursday, Jan. 23.
Azcona, who thanked the industry stakeholders for coming together, said the last time all of them gathered for a consultative assembly was a year ago.
“This recent gathering that shows we are united bodes well for our sugar industry,” Azcona said of the meeting at the SRA Bacolod office on Tuesday.
The Sugar Council, after the meeting, issued a statement praising Azcona for coming up with a program that benefits sugar farmers and for conducting a consultation with all industry stakeholders.
Azcona met with representatives from the planters groups, millers, refiners, traders, importers and exporters on Tuesday to discuss Sugar Order No. 2.
SO2 encourages the voluntary purchase of local sugar for reclassification to reserve sugar to avail of an allocation for a future importation program, he said.
This was received well by industry stakeholders, particularly the farmers group as this is expected to “stabilize prices at a level reasonably profitable to our farmers as well as to our consumers,” Azcona said.
The sugar order provides an opportunity to anyone who has a domestic sugar trading license, thus allowing even individual farmers, farmers groups, associations and cooperatives to participate in the program, he added.
This program is similar to what we implemented last year which was well received as this “removes any subjectivity to the import allocation process because allocation will be performance-based.”
As such, “those who support and purchase more from our local farmers will be given a bigger allocation in our future import programs,” Azcona said.
“We laud Administrator Azcona for crafting a program which will protect us from price fluctuations during the peak of the harvest, for discussing with all stakeholders the proposed program, and for reiterating that there will be no importation until May or June when the harvest is finished,” the Sugar Council said on Tuesday.
The Sugar Council is composed of the Confederation of Sugar Producers Association headed by Aurelio Gerardo Valderrama Jr., the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters led by Enrique Rojas, and the Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers headed by Danilo Abelita.*