ILOILO – Western Visayas, as a major sugarcane producer, is seen to benefit from the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) initiative to include sugar in relief operations.
The Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases recently approved the DA’s recommendation to include sugar in relief goods as a way of helping sugarcane farmers and the entire industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Remelyn Recoter, regional executive director of DA Western Visayas, said that this initiative of Secretary William Dar is beneficial to the region being the major producer of sugarcane in the country.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reveal that Western Visayas posted about 81.8 percent of the last quarter of 2019 production of 4.19 million metric tons. Meanwhile, Northern Mindanao and Central Visayas contributed only 8.2 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively. About 99.1 percent of the sugarcane volume of production is processed into centrifugal sugar, while the rest are processed into ethanol, muscovado sugar and vinegar.
“The IATF decision will definitely increase the domestic demand by about 360,000 bags at 50 kilograms per bag for a one time-one-kilogram sugar inclusion in the food packs of 18 million households,” Recoter said.
Aside from the distribution of cash aids to low income Filipino households through Social Amelioration Program, the government has alternately included fresh agri-fishery products in their food packs other than the usual rice, noodles, and sardines.
“This new development in the provision of food packs greatly helped the farmers, fishers and livestock raisers,” she added.(DA-Western Visayas/PN)
