The drought brought on by the El Niño phenomenon has caused a drop in sugar production and an early end to the milling season, Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona of the Sugar Regulatory Administration said on Sunday, March 10.
“The dry spell has caused the cane to be harvested to mature early with a drop in tonnage, specifically crops planted from February to March 2023,” Azcona told DIGICAST NEGROS.
The SRA is verifying the actual areas affected, and the drop in production is being computed, Azcona said.
“The dry spell since November 2023 has caused farms without irrigation to have problems planting, as they cannot get the cane to germinate. This is a large area”, he also said.
“We already have mills indicating closure a few months earlier than usual, as the cane supply dwindles”, he said.
A number of mills are seeing a drop of deliveries in the 10,000 tons cane in one week range, he said, which is a clear sign of dwindling cane supply.
“The dry spell since November 2023 has caused farms without irrigation to have problems planting, as they cannot get the cane to germinate. This is a large area” he also said.
“Most probably they will plant when rains come hopefully end of May,” Azcona said.
The next problem is availability of cane points, plus a clearly delayed season, he said.
This will also affect the 2024-25 season, Azcona said.
CANE DRIED UP
“The prolonged drought has greatly affected our production. The sugarcane to be harvested has dried up therefore losing a lot of sugar to be manufactured,” Manuel Lamata, United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines president, said.
”What is worst is the crop for next year’s harvest is already being affected. Only those who have irrigation facilities can survive this. others would have to pray hard for the rains to come right away,” he said.
He said about 100,000 hectares of sugarcane fields in Negros have been affected by the extreme heat brought on by the El Niño phenomenon.
This will cause billions of pesos in loses, he said.
LOWER TONNAGE
Enrique Rojas, National Federation of Sugarcane Planters president, said “The dry spell has severely affected our cane crops. Most farmers reported that their harvest has registered lower tonnages this year, compared to last year”.
Farmers who have access to water sources have resorted to irrigating their canes, but they have also reported that water levels in the rivers have dropped this year because of El Niño, he said.
“The prohibitive expense in irrigating the canes will significantly increase their production cost,” Rojas said.
“For farmers who cannot afford irrigation, they should just pray hard that rains will come to save their dehydrated crops,” he added.
“We call on government to initiate cloud seeding operations in the areas most affected by the drought to mitigate the effects of the dry spell,” Rojas said.
MILLING FASTER
Aurelio Gerardo Valderrama Jr., Confederation of Sugar Producers’ Associations president, said they drought has been felt in Northern Negros Occidental for the last month.
“Definitely milling is faster and a probable drop in production is expected but overall we might reach the 1.8m MT projection,” he said.
“From what we have been hearing the south is bad, and that’s probably why most mills will be closing early,” he said.*