Entire sugar harvest to be classified for domestic use

THE Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) on Thursday said all sugar that will be produced in the coming crop year will be classified in the “B” category (for domestic use) to stabilize prices.

The classification will cover the entire milling season that starts on Oct. 1 or the nearest Monday, SRA Administrator Pablo Luis S. Azcona said in a statement.

Since Oct. 1 falls on a Wednesday, milling will open on Sept. 29, the SRA noted.

It added via Viber that it has classified sugar as B since 2022 “because  despite growth, we are still below demand.”

In his report to the industry, Mr. Azcona said as of July 27, raw sugar production amounted to 2.084 million metric tons (MMT) on input of nearly 26 MMT of cane harvested over 405,000 hectares.

Mr. Azcona said Mindanao farmers were this year’s “heroes of the sugar industry,” after they posted the strongest production growth.

“Mindanao will likely be our last frontier in our road towards sustainability,” he said, without providing details.

The SRA is seeking an P8-billion budget for soil rejuvenation and small-scale irrigation covering about 160,000 hectares over three years.

It is also seeking P1.2 billion for a 20,000-hectare site to propagate plantlets of a high-yielding variety.

“Our productivity in the past three years was largely due to the distribution of high-yielding cane and the 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,” Mr. Azcona said.

Mr. Azcona said the sugar industry could receive P1 billion in the next year from funding authorized by the Sugar Industry Development Act (SIDA).

He noted the industry’s efforts to seek the amendment of SIDA to raise from P2 billion a year to P5 billion “considering the substantial contribution of the sugar industry to the national coffers.” — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza