• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The increase in the budget for the implementation of Sugarcane Industry Development Act (SIDA) of 2015, to P1.4 billion next year, was described as a welcome development by Senator Juan Victor “JV” Ejercito.
Ejercito, one of the principal authors of SIDA, disclosed that its original P2 billion budget has been reduced to as low as P300 million in the past several years, due to underutilization.
It shows that a lot of people in the sugar industry are now availing of SIDA funds, Ejercito said in a phone interview.
Under the law, the Department of Budget and Management is mandated to include, starting in 2016, an annual amount of P2 billion for the implementation of the SIDA, which is intended to increase production efficiency in sugarcane farms and sugar mills through research and technological innovation, infrastructure, and human resource development.
It comprises 50 percent for infrastructure support programs; 15 percent for research and development, capability building, and technology transfer activities; 15 percent for grants to block farms; 15 percent for socialized credit; and 5 percent for scholarship grants.
During the recent budget hearing, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Laurel told the senators that the SIDA 2015 needs amendments for more flexibility in the use of the funds approved by Congress to improve the sugar industry’s productivity.
At the start of milling last week, farmers complained of plummeting sugar prices that ranged from P2,200 to P2,300 per 50-kilo bag, which is P300 below their standard production cost of P2,500.
Last year, prices ranged from P2,700 to P2,800.
The National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers, Confederation of Sugarcane Producers, and the National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines have called on the Sugar Regulatory Administration to explain the drop in the prices of sugar and molasses to a level much lower than during the milling season’s opening crop last year.
It also prompted Negros Occidental Third District Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez to seek an investigation into the sudden and significant decrease in the prices of sugar.
When Negros suffers, the nation’s sugar industry feels it. These are not new problems but old ones we’ve seen before, Benitez said.
The neophyte solon called on the Department of Agriculture, SRA, provincial government of Negros Occidental, and traders to act decisively, stabilize farmgate prices, ensure fair trade, and fully implement the SIDA law to modernize and protect the sugar industry.*
