• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The call for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. to intervene in the plummeting sugar prices continues to snowball as Negros Occidental Fifth District Rep. Emilio Bernardino Yulo also sought national intervention to abate the downtrend in prices.
“We need to help our sugar producers immediately, especially our small farmers that comprise 80 percent of the sugar industry, as the past weeks have taken its toll on them and it’s heartbreaking to see them suffer during the Christmas season,” Yulo said in a statement on Friday.
He encouraged the government to start directly buying sugar from producers, at a price that will give them some margin of profit from their losses, noting that sugar prices went below production cost.
The current price has seen a loss of at least P40,000 per hectare and with most small farmers owning between one and three hectares, the low price has been hurting them most, he said.
Wennie Sancho, secretary-general of the General Alliance of Workers Associations and convenor of the Save the Sugar Industry Movement, has warned of social unrest, joblessness, economic dislocation, and the eventual collapse of the sugar industry, if the price of sugar continues to plummet.
Sugar farmers have blamed sugar importation for the low prices, with prevailing prices reported at only between P2,300 and P2,500 per 50-kilo bag.
It is below the expected price level of P3,200, which provides a comfortable profit margin for sugar producers and small farmers.
Yulo said the direct buying of sugar from producers by the government, which will sell it directly to consumers, will bring down retail prices.
This has been done before when government ordered the National Food Authority to buy palay directly from the farmers, he added.
In an earlier statement, Sancho noted that while there is more supply, the demand remains the same, blaming the oversupply to the sugar import liberalization scheme of the government.
The sugar industry provides jobs to at least 700,000 Filipinos, who are directly employed in sugar production, he added. | GB
