BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – The recently formed Sugar Producers Coalition, or Sugar Council, is proposing a lower tonnage of sugar importation.
The Panay Federation of Sugarcane Planters (Panayfed), the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NFSP), and the Confederation of Sugar Producers Association (CONFED) are proposing to import only 350,000 metric tons (MT) of sugar. This is 100,000 MT lower compared to the 450,000 MT proposal pushed by the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA).
Panayfed and NFSP proposed that the 350,000 MT of sugar arrive in two tranches after the close of the current milling season and before the opening of the 2023–2024 milling season in September of this year.
Panayfed and NFSP’s stand is backed by CONFED president Aurelio Gerardo Valderrama Jr., who also submitted a letter to the SRA last week pushing for the importation of a more conservative volume of sugar.
The sugar groups said in their recommendation that the 350,000 MT will cover the two-month buffer stock. It will arrive after the close of the current milling season but before the start of the coming season. This will minimize its effect on millgate prices in September 2023.
They also urged the SRA to program the importation in two tranches of 175,000 MT for each shipment.
Panayfed and NFSP also said the SRA should specify what volume of the importation will be refined and raw sugar, based on an assessment of market requirements, and what portion will go to the domestic market and what will be earmarked for industrial and institutional consumers, with safeguards to ensure that the sugar goes to the intended markets.
Earlier, both Negros Occidental governor Eugenio Jose Lacson and Vice Gov. Jeffrey Ferrer supported the proposed importation of sugar, although they pointed out that it should only be done during the off-milling season.
Meanwhile, the local group Save the Sugar Industry Movement opposed the proposed sugar importation and warned that the unregulated entry of subsidized imported sugar would be disastrous to the local sugar industry.
The group’s lead convenor, Wennie Sancho, said 90 percent of the sugar farmers are agrarian reform beneficiaries who have soldiered on planting sugar even without receiving support from the government.
“If imported sugar floods the market, sugar farm workers will have their ‘tiempo muerto’ not only for three months but for a lifetime,” he said.
Sancho said the government should be more aggressive in pursuing unscrupulous sugar traders, hoarders, and profiteers rather than importing sugar./PN