Ethanol boom seen to push RP sugar industry

Pointing out that the global boom in ethanol production can push the Philippine sugar industry into record growth, Team Unity senatorial candidate Edgardo J. Angara urged the Department of Agriculture to conduct an immediate mapping of underutilized lands that can be readily tapped for sugar production.

Angara said he was encouraged during a recent trip to Central Luzon by the sugar cane plantations that have sprung from the areas devastated by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, which were earlier declared unfit for agricultural production within 25 years after the eruption.

"It is merely 16 years from the eruption and vast portions of the Pinatubo-devastated areas have been fully rehabilitated for sugar production," said Angara, a former agriculture secretary and the senator who authored and sponsored the landmark Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA).

Angara said an additional 200,000 hectares of land can be immediately tapped for sugar production and half a million hectares of underutilized land can be planted to sugar within the medium-term.

Angara took note of the big-bucks investments being poured into Brazil’s ethanol production by international investors. One group is led by former World Bank president James Wolfensohn and American Online founder Steve Case, said Angara.

Angara said a sizable jump in the total areas planted to sugar in the Philippines may attract the same international investors, who are now scouring the globe for investments in bio-fuels.

The fact that the Philippines has a Bio-Fuels Act is an additional incentive to these foreign investors, which would bring in capital and new technologies.