BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – The devastation caused by Tropical Storm “Paeng” prompted the United Federation of Sugar Producers (UNIFED) to seek President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s intervention to raise the suggested retail price (SRP) of sugar from the current P70 per kilo to P85 to P90 at least.
UNIFED president Manuel Lamata said, “Our sugar farmers need help to recover from the damage caused by the recent storm that has inundated hundreds of sugar farms from north to south and the rest of the Visayas.”
Before the storm, Lamata said millgate prices were already going down. But seeing the damage “Paeng” brought, they need the immediate assistance from the President to bring up the SRP until the farmers are able to recover.
“While sugar prices have gone down, fertilizers and fuel prices are still on the rise, and compounded with the typhoon’s damage, our sugar farmers will have a hard time surviving this time,” Lamata added.
He said that the UNIFED is also requesting that the millgate prices be increased by at least P60 to stabilize the price at P3,000/LKg.
Currently, the millgate price ranges from P2,900.
He is confident that Marcos, as the head of the Agriculture department, will understand the situation as the typhoon has not only cost us lives but millions, perhaps billions, worth of damages to the agriculture industry./PN
