Group laments artificially low sugar prices
The United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines (Unifed) is seeking the government’s immediate intervention to arrest the decline of sugar prices, which it says comes at the expense of local farmers.
In a statement, Unifed said the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) should intervene “as soon as possible … to unmask the culprits who are playing us.”
“We need the DA and SRA’s intervention to prop up sugar prices at a comfortable level to prevent further losses especially now when there is also the issue of sugar purity that has gone down due to the long drought,” Unifed president Manuel Lamata said.
“If the government will come in and hopefully start buying our sugar, we will only sell directly to the government and they can sell directly to the people, eliminating these traders until prices stabilize,” he added.
Lamata said they have observed a “huge drop” in milling prices, with losses averaging P100 per 50-kilogram bag (LKg) of sugar last week.
According to Unifed, millsite prices averaged P2,500 per LKg last Thursday, far from sugar farmers’ expected price of P2,800 per LKg.
“This is artificial pricing. Somebody is playing with the market and an immediate intervention to curb the downtrend in sugar prices is very much needed,” the group said.
Lamata said traders wanting to profit big from this artificial pricing “should be exposed” as retail prices remained stable despite the decrease in milling prices.
‘Erratic’ prices
The group has observed that sugar prices “have been erratically dipping and increasing contrary” to the prevailing trend in supply and demand since the beginning of the milling season.
Unifed said the continued downtrend in prices would severely affect small farmers, which comprise more than 80 percent of sugar producers nationwide.
SRA administrator Pablo Luis Azcona said last week that wholesale and retail prices were stable, but farmers’ prices have been volatile despite the country maintaining a stable inventory.
Data from the SRA showed that sugar price at the millsite level totaled P2,671.52 per LKg as of Nov. 17, an increase of 4.18 percent from P2,564.21 per LKg in the same period a year ago.
In Metro Manila markets, refined sugar retailed from P74 to P90 per kilogram as of Nov. 27, slightly lower than P80 to P100 per kg last year, according to the DA’s price monitoring.
Brown sugar was priced from P65 to P85 per kg, also lower than P72 to P96 per kg previously.
