BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros farmers are seeking the intervention of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to raise the suggested retail price (SRP) of sugar from its present P70 per kilo to at least P85-P90, due to the devastation brought about by Typhoon Paeng.
Manuel Lamata, president of the United Federation of Sugar Producers (UNIFED) said the increase in the SRP of sugar will help farmers to recover from the damage caused by the recent typhoon that inundated hundreds of sugar farms from north to south of Negros Island and the rest of the Visayas.
He said that UNIFED is requesting PBBM to consider increasing the millgate price of sugar by least P60 to stabilize the price at P3,000 per LKG, which presently ranges around the P2,900 level.
Lamata said millgate prices were already going down before the typhoon, but after seeing the damage Paeng wrought, we need the immediate assistance from President Marcos to bring up the SRP until our farmers will be able to recover.
While sugar prices have gone down, “fertilizers and fuel prices are still on the rise, and compounded with the typhoon’s damage, our sugar farmers will have a hard time surviving this time,” Lamata added.
In a statement, the UNIFED president said he is confident that PBBM, as head of the Agriculture department, will understand the situation as the typhoon has not only taken lives but also cost millions, perhaps billions of damage to the agriculture industry.*
