BY ERWIN ‘AMBO’ DELILAN
THE CHORUS of planters belonging to the three sugar rings in Negros that all their produce for crop-year (CY) 2021- 2022 be classified as “B” sugar is meritorious. They fervently appeal to the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to scrap “A” sugar or the country’s annual quota (to be exported) to the United States (US) this calendar year. Their very reason is the projected double La Niña on the later part of this year.
Such weather condition is expected to bring more rains, and may result to flooding in some parts of Negros. With that, the harvest of standing (sugarcane) crops maybe delayed, causing shortfall of targeted sugar production just in case.
Milling season in Negros has just started late last month.
Raymond Montinola, president of the Confederation of Sugar Producers in Negros (CONFED), said, “Our recommendation is for the best interest of the consuming public that, as an industry, we are able to provide food security by having sustainable supply of domestic sugar as an agriculture product for our countrymen.”
The sugar industry needs to have an ‘All-B’ domestic sugar allocation given that the production estimate of the SRA is at 2.099 million metric tons. And an anticipated second-year of La Niña is shown as the reason for low sugar production estimate, he furthered.
The same position and reasoning were also echoed by the Manuel Lamata-led United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines (UNIFED) and Nene Rojas’ National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, Inc. (NFSP).
Aside from La Niña, per research, local market for locally-produced sugar is also quite bettering. As a result, there’s now a steady rise for domestic sugar market prices.
Amid the health pandemic, online deals are also into sugar trading. Lazada and Shopee already include domestic sugar among their commodities being sold online. And it’s gaining ground, too, the report said.
Believe it or not, the prevailing online price of locally-produced refined sugar in Negros (as of this writing) ranges from P2,400 to P2,900 per sack or 50 kilograms. Per kilo, brown sugar sells at P40, wash at P45 and refined at P65.
Ergo, this is an indicative that the domestic market has become the premier market now for the country’s sugar produce. Or simply put, it is no longer “A” sugar that dictates premium prices, rather, it’s “B” sugar that matters most at this moment.
Per the SRA classification: “A” sugar is for US quota, “B” for domestic, “C” for reserve, and “D” for World Market.
The Philippines is one of the select countries in the world given an opportunity to export sugar to the US annually. Our annual allocation of sugar export to the US market is at a premium.
For CY 2020-2021, the Department of Agriculture (DA) allocated seven percent of the local sugar production for export (just) to comply with the US quota. It’s about 74,000 metric tons (MT) of “A” sugar.
But with the current trend, industry players are asking the DA to focus now on domestic sugar supply situation. Because it seems that US no longer the premium sugar market nowadays.
However, both SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica and Agriculture secretary William Dar are yet to cast their respective comment on the matter.
‘DISPASSIONATE’
Though domestic sugar market is ameliorating anew, the sugar industry has yet another thing to hurdle. The third and fourth generations of hacienda laborers are seem to be “dispassionate” to stay and work in the haciendas. For them, “tapas-karga” (cutting and loading of sugarcane) is now an odd job.
Hacienda lads, who are also gadget-savvy at this time, prefer to work in car wash clinics, construction sites, security agencies, bakeries, grocery stores, etcetera. On the other hand, those who graduated from college or even from senior high school opted to go abroad, work as call center agents or in malls.
The problem now is the original hacienda laborers who are getting old and extinct. Who’ll replace them?
Most of the sugar planters now are reliant on “dodos” (formerly called as sacadas) during milling season. But it’s also hard to look for the dodos in Negros. Antique province (still) remains as the potent source of dodos for Negros. Labor scarcity, therefore, is one of the challenges currently confronting the sugar industry.
This problem is worse than La Niña, causing the standing crops to become dried (hal-ag) or rotten (lu-o), affecting the purity of the cane (purisa).
THREAT OF FOOD SECURITY
It’s time for SRA, DA, among other concerned agencies of the government to look into this matter. With the dispassionate youths on farming and hacienda things, the threat of food security in the country is getting worse than the threat of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Yes, the current trend suggests that it’s time to embrace the mechanization era. Though it’s a little bit expensive, others still tried and failed, and some ended up frustrated. Human hands are still the best for sugar industry, per the experts.
Other planters, however, find it too “costly” if they have to follow all the “basics” and “standards” imposed by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). So, they opted to implement “pakyaw system”, which also discourages the juvenile laborers. Hence, it’s time for government to look for win-win solutions on this particular concern.
SRA and DA, too, must have to think of potent program(s) or project(s) that would reawaken the youths’ passion on agriculture. They really have to entice the young generations that there’s “gold” in farming.
We hate to see the moment that species extinction in the farmlands ain’t just for the birds and the bees but for the local farmers or hacienda laborers as well. It’s really a serious problem.
And if not addressed properly, no doubt that our beloved farmers and laborers will belong to a “dying sector” in the country soonest./PN
