Planters slam sugar importation order

The United Sugar Producers Federation (UNIFED) criticized the issuance of Sugar Order No. 3 by the Sugar Regulatory Administration that allows the importation of 200,000 metric tons of sugar, especially that it is the peak of the sugar milling season.

UNIFED President, Manuel Lamata said “this is appalling that the very agency that is supposed to protect us seems determined to kill the industry.” UNIFED is one of the biggest federation of sugar planters in the country.

“This is adding insult to injury,” former Sugar Regulatory Board Member, representing the planters, Atty. Dino Yulo also said, adding that the issuance of the order is “very ill-timed.”

SRA justified the Sugar Order to stabilize rising cost of sugar and expected low productivity in sugar producing areas that was affected by Typhoon Odette.

However, Yulo said that it is ironic that while the clamor for high price of sugar comes from small vendors, “the one that will clearly benefit in this importation are industrial users, especially bottling companies that have been provided half of the import quota.”

While SRA claims this is based on projection from industry stakeholders that indeed there will be a shortage of sugar due to low production in sugar lands, especially in Negros that was severely devastated by Odette and which accounts for more than half of the country’s total production, “the import volume is way too much and not at this time when sugar milling is at its peak,” Yulo added.

Lamata on the other hand said that it is “very frustrating for SRA to make this import order a priority when it has not even addressed our request to urge the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry to put a cap on fertilizers’ cost which was put forth since last year.”

“They only see the increasing cost of sugar in the market but they do not acknowledge the forces driving those prices up and much of it can be attributed to fertilizers that almost tripled its cost and fuel that has breached the P50 per liter mark,” Lamata said, adding that if you weigh everything, “whatever increase in sugar prices we are seeing in the market, goes to our paying high cost of farm inputs.”

Lamata said that they have not been consulted on the matter and while they knew that some planters’ groups agreed to the importation program, “they thought that SRA and the DA will also give in exchange, fertilizers subsidies at the very least.”

“We are still in a midst of a crisis, and our sugar planters in Southern Negros are still trying to recover from the effects of Odette, and here is another crisis that will hit us. We hope that SRA will reconsider and amend the order until they get a good picture from the ground as to what quantity is just needed to ensure that the industry is protected,” Yulo said.*