SRA Declares All ‘B’ Sugar for Next Crop Year

Sugar Regulatory Administrator (SRA) Pablo Luis Azcona announced that all sugar produced in the coming crop year will be classified as “B” or domestic sugar during the 71st Philsutech Convention in Waterfront Hotel, Cebu last Wednesday.

SRA traditionally declares sugar classification when the Administrator makes his industry updates for industry stakeholders that attend the annual convention.

Azcona also announced that the official start of the milling season will be October 1 or the Monday closest to that date, following a 3-year transition period to bring it back to the last quarter of the year. However, October 1 being a Wednesday, we may declare it open on September 29.

In his report, Azcona said that as of July 27, the total raw sugar produced has reached 2.084 million metric tons with almost 26 million metric tons of canes milled in a total of 405,000 hectares of which 392,000 was planted for sugar while 13,000 for bioethanol.

Azcona also hailed the Mindanao farmers as this year’s heroes of the sugar industry, attributing the biggest growth in production to members of the newly-formed sugar federation led by its president, former Congressman Manuel Zubiri.

Mindanao will likely be our last frontier in our road towards sustainability, Azcona said as he enjoined others to welcome the new federation who marched alongside industry leaders for the first time in the annual convention.

In his updates, Azcona showed the progress of the sugar industry under the Marcos administration, lauding the President’s concern for the industry.

In fact, the administrator added that Agriculture Sec. Francisco Tiu Laurel and SRA will present their proposed request for an P8 billion budget for soil rejuvenation and small scale irrigation that will cover about 160,000 hectares in a 3-year period.

This, said Azcona, is “crucial” along with our other proposal including a P1.2 billion for a 20,000 hectares dedicated to propagation of high yielding variety plantlets.

“Our productivity in the past three years was largely due to the distribution of high yielding variety canes and SRA intends to focus on this along with other scientific approaches to farming that we have been learning from our foreign partners towards our self-sustainability,” Azcona added.

While SRA is hopeful that the industry will continue with its growth trend, he remains cautious as he calls on sugar farmers to remain vigilant and work alongside SRA in preventing the spread of the Red Stripe Soft Scale Insect (RSSI) infestation that has spread in over 3,200 hectares in Negros Island and Panay.

“These are validated field inspection but the figures could be much higher and its effects on our sugar canes are not yet known,” Azcona said, adding that they will soon start testing on the sugar content of recovered canes. A study in Egypt has shown as much as a 50% drop in sugar content from RSSI infected canes.

With regards to the Sugar Industry Development Act (SIDA), Azcona said that the industry might be granted a P1 billion SIDA fund for the coming year but there are moves from industry stakeholders to seek the amendment of the SIDA funding from the P2B annual allocation to P5 billion considering the substantial contribution of the sugar industry to the national coffers.

Azcona also presented at least two international cooperation programs with Japan and Brazil and are exploring more collaboration with other sugar producing countries, particularly on sugar cane varietal exchange and propagation.* (MLE)