Sugar council bucks import proposal

BACOLOD City – Members of the Sugar Council expressed concern over a proposal allowing traders to import additional sugar to address low millgate prices.

In a l etter forwarded yesterday morning to Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) head Pablo Luis Azcona and signed by various groups, including the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations ( CONFED), the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters ( NFSP), and the Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers ( PanayFed), it has been pointed out that the proposed trading program is “inopportune.”

It added that the prevailing perception of farmers that millgate prices have dropped because of over-importation and predatory pricing puts into serious question any program that suggests even more trader intervention and importation.

“To insist on it would be adding insult to injury,” the Sugar Council said.

For his part, CONFED president Aurelio Gerardo Valderrama Jr. said they expressed an unequivocal objection to more sugar importation.

He pointed out to the SRA that alternatives to the proposal have been on the table since early this year.

Valderrama refers to the intervention plan wherein the government will purchase sugar directly from local producers.

PanayFed president Danilo Abelita said they know very well that over- importation got the sugar industry into the “mess” it is in today, and agreeing to more importation is “suicidal.”

NFSP president Enrique Rojas also questioned the SRA as to why they cast aside the plan for government intervention.

Rojas argued that the SRA should not change horses midstream, adding t hat harvesting is almost done in many areas.