2.5M MT OUTPUT TARGETTED: P2B fund eyed for sugar

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The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) targets to bring the country’s raw sugar production back to 2.5 million metric tons (MT) per year.

SRA acting administrator David Alba said in his speech at the convention of the Philippine Sugar Technologists Association in Bacolod City yesterday this will be achieved if the industry gets a P2 billion yearly allotment under the Sugar Industry Development Act (SIDA).

“The country’s need is pegged at 2.5 million MT and we have done that in crop year 2016-2017 when we actually overshot the target. We have been falling short in the past few years because of various factors, some of which are beyond our control such as climate change, high inputs prices and of course the pandemic that drove up our production costs,” Alba said.

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The SRA chief said to hit the 2.5 million MT target, focus must be given on farm productivity and efficiency of mills for higher recovery.

Alba also called on the need to implement a good drainage plan in farms, a longer planting season, additional investment in research and development, technology and mechanization, among others.

“This year, the SIDA funding was further cut down to a fourth of the original P2 billion allocation at only P500 million. We have been accused of underutilizing the SIDA fund. But with proper programming and with the support of President Marcos and our allies in Congress, we will ask help to circumvent the red tape and go full blast in utilizing the SIDA fund by next year to make us globally competitive,” Alba said.

For crop year 2021-2022, the country produced 1.79 million MT of raw sugar.

SIDA was originally aimed to help the sugar industry to be competitive by allotting a yearly fund of P2 billion starting 2016.

However, allocations for the fund have been on a steady decline as it is not being utilized efficiently mainly because farmers fail to comply with requirements of banks for loans.

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