Sugar producers want prices to be market-driven

MANILA, Philippines -  The country’s largest organization of sugar farmers insisted yesterday that prices of food commodities such as sugar should be market driven in order to establish a free and fair trading platform where no price manipulation can be dictated upon.

The Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations (Confed) said it is improper to put a price cap in the sugar prices when government is not even subsidizing the industry.

Confed president Marcelino Aganon emphasized that government must provide substantial support for sugar farming sector, mainly composed of small farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries, so that they will be able to produce more in order for the country to have a stable supply in the market.

Sugar as a commodity is being sold on a weekly basis and Negros Occidental, which produces more than half of the country’s inventory, is hardly able to sell or liquidate their sugar, he said.

“Good prices will not do us good if we are not able to sell our sugar,” Negros Panay chairman Raymond Montinola, for his part, said.

Confed revealed it recently found out that there are industrial users bringing into domestic market sugar premixes, in the process evading the rules of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) and also defrauding the government of vital tariff and value-added taxes.

The SRA is mandated to regulate all sugar entering into the domestic market because it has to strike a balance between supply and demand in order for the producers to maximize profit and provide affordable prices for the consumers.

“Therefore, these forms of sugar entering the domestic market with sugar premixes clearances should be regulated (either as “C” reserve or “D” or sugar for export) especially during the peak production months of December to April of each sugar crop year, or else prices for the sugar producers will be adversely affected.

Case in point is the five to six-week liquidation of sugar trading in Negros Occidental, where there is no buying of refined sugar. The financing support for these farmers comes from either the mill or sugar association/cooperative but not government, the group added.

Confed stressed that the answer to food security is not importation but rather productivity.

“If only government can make good its program of public and private partnership that will increase production to provide food sufficiency and profitability for our local farmers to have an incentive to continue sugar farming and provide sustainable livelihood to the no less than five-million Filipinos directly and indirectly affected by the industry,” it said.

Meanwhile, Aganon said there is, however, a more pressing matter of tax evasion.

“Government inter-agency relationship needs to be dynamic in implementing the rules and regulations governing the sugar industry specifically violations involving sugar smuggling that robs government of much needed tax money (tariff and VAT),” he said.

He added that they are getting reports that these importers continue to press SRA to issue premix clearances for them to get their sugar out of the Bureau of Customs (BOC).