• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The National Federation of Sugarcane Planters and Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers Inc. has joined the Confederation of Sugar Producers Association Inc. in calling for a “data-based, transparent, and consultative sugar importation plan.”
The reaction from NFSP and PANAYFED came after the recent announcement of government plans to import 200,000 metric tons of refined sugar, scheduled to arrive by September, which they say is traditionally the start of the milling season.
In a joint statement, they said that the arrival of imported sugar at the start of the milling season will exert downward pressure on sugar prices.
The NFSP stressed that the government should import only when it is absolutely necessary, and in such a manner and schedule that it will not affect millgate prices.
In his letter to Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel, CONFED president Aurelio Gerardo Valderrama, Jr. said that the government’s plan to import 200,000 MT refined sugar did not include any basis for such plan, and neither was any stakeholder consultation conducted.
Based on available data of the Sugar Regulatory Administration, dated June 9, Valderrama said it indicated adequate sugar inventory levels of both raw (436,229 MT) and refined (492,985 MT) sugar.
He pointed out that current rates of withdrawal indicate that the local inventory can last without importation until the start of the milling season later this year.
In a statement, Pablo Luis Azcona, Sugar Regulatory Administration head, explained that the program being referred by Secretary Tiu Laurel is Sugar Order #2, or the pre-qualification of possible importers by having them pre-qualify by buying “local farmer sugar first.”
Azcona said that SO2 increased the farmer’s price to a stable P2,700 to P2,800/bag of raw sugar, and also stabilized retail refined prices at P73 to P100/kg.
NFSP president Enrique Rojas, PANAYFED president Danilo Abelita, and Valderrama called on the SRA to conduct stakeholder consultations and enlighten them on the basis of the proposed sugar importation plan.
“We need to see the sugar production and demand figures which were used as the basis for such a plan,” Rojas and Abelita said.
They also denied what they described as “malicious insinuations” that the Sugar Council, an umbrella organization representing 67 percent of the production of affiliated sugarcane farmers, has disbanded.
“Our united commitment in the Sugar Council remains strong in advocating for the welfare of the majority of sugarcane farmers in the country,” Rojas and Abelita stressed.*
