• RICHARD T. CABALLERO JR.
A sugar association and cooperative from the fifth district of Negros Occidental have issued an open letter to the Office of the President, urgently calling for presidential intervention to address what they describe as the “recent woes that have beset the sugar industry.”
In their appeal, the farmers expressed deep concern over the sharp decline in sugar prices in the province.
They reported that as the 2025-2026 milling season opened in October, traditionally a period when sugar inventories are at their lowest, raw sugar prices averaged only P2,250 per 50-kilogram bag, which is an almost P500 drop compared to the approximately P2,700 price recorded at the end of the previous crop year in June.
“In the 9 weeks since opening, prices remained hovering around 2,300.00 which already fell below our production cost. To date, this plunged further to 2,197.00 in the most recent week. Still, even at these low prices, there has been a shortage of traders buying our sugar,” farmers stated in an open letter.
Despite the plummeting farmgate prices, retail sugar prices have remained high, averaging around P75 per kilogram. The farmers expressed concern that this retail price increase has not translated into any improvement for producers.
“It is concerning that this increase in retail price has not trickled down to an improvement in our farmgate prices,” it added.
The letter also pointed out that the fifth district was among the hardest-hit areas in Negros Occidental during Typhoon Tino, which submerged thousands of hectares of sugarcane farms and left plantations caked in mud. This brought about severe losses in crop yield in tonnage as well as purity; not to mention additional harvest costs and significant expense for rehabilitation, and repairs.
Moreover, the region’s farmers continue to grapple with the ongoing infestation of the red-stripe soft scale insect (RSSI), which has caused additional yield losses.
Approximately 2,500 farmers and roughly 30,000 laborers from the district have been affected by both the typhoon and the insect infestation.
The open letter added that small farmers are the worst hit by the current situation, as they survive through hand to mouth subsistence. They sought immediate action from the President, as the former only have one or two hectares which only takes one week to mill, making every week’s price crucial to their survival.
“As an industry, we have taken the challenges with the farmer’s optimism that next week will be better. Sadly, after 10 weeks of this, we are barely surviving. We have exhausted all the resources available to us and must now look to the government for help. We therefore hereby request the Department of Agriculture and the SRA to immediately intervene in the sugar buying and pricing situation and find solutions that may provide reprieve for the producers,” the farmers added.
“The urgency for government action cannot be overstated,” they emphasized. “While a long-term solution must be studied, what we need most is a short-term measure to halt the bleeding.”
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is set to arrive today, December 12, in Bacolod City to assess the city’s Oplan Baha.*
