Planters in Negros, Bukidnon raise alarm over low sugar prices
BACOLOD CITY—Negros Occidental Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson has expressed continued concern over the continued drop in sugar prices, an issue that also resonates among planters and farmers in Bukidnon province.
“I’m still waiting to see if there is indeed a solution to the low prices. This week, we will know if there is any improvement in sugar prices,” Lacson said, noting that he was waiting for any measure from the national government to address the low millgate prices.
A sugar bidding is scheduled here on Wednesday and Thursday.
Negros is the country’s seat of sugar production with many farmers and farmworkers dependent on the industry for a living.
The governor said there was a growing sense of resignation among local producers, pointing out “there are even planters who have accepted the fact that we will have to bite the bullet already.”
Lacson described the current situation as a “double whammy” for the sugar industry, as stakeholders are struggling with the simultaneous decline of both millgate prices and overall production volumes.
“We’re hoping that if it really hits us, it only hits us this [crop] year,” he added, expressing hope that the industry’s hardships will not extend into the next milling season.
On Dec. 21 last year, a 50-kilo bag of refined sugar was sold at P2,174, 14 percent less than the P2,537 tag a year earlier.
Enrique Rojas, president of the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NFSP), said sugar prices since the start of crop year 2025-2026 have been below the production cost of marginal sugar farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries, which constitute at least 80 percent of sugar farmers in the country.
Compared to last crop year’s price levels, sugar farmers are losing between P200 and P300 per bag of sugar that they produce, he lamented.
Milling period
In Bukidnon province, planters are met with lower-than-expected sugar prices as the milling season started in the third week of November last year.
During the first sugar bidding on Dec. 5, 2025, a 50-kilo bag fetched P2,150, way lower than the P2,400 level during the previous milling season. The price went down to P2,000 on Dec. 12, 2025, and climbed to P2,075 on Dec. 26, 2025.
The next sugar bidding in Bukidnon is on Friday.
But Albert Tutor, planters relations officer of Crystal Sugar Milling Corp. Inc. said the January to March period marks the peak of the milling season when sugar output is expected to increase significantly compared to the previous season.
“With higher production volumes this milling season, ‘quedan,’ or trading prices, are expected to decline,” Tutor said.
Before the start of the milling season, the Mindanao Sustainable Sugarcane Agricultural Development Inc. had joined calls for the national government to abandon plans for sugar importation, assuring that there will be enough production to meet domestic demand.
Last month, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. announced a prevailing sugar import ban until the end of 2026 to protect domestic sugar producers.
But Quezon (Bukidnon) Mayor Pablo Lorenzo III said the entry of sugar substitutes was contributing to lowering demand for domestically produced sugar.
More than a million metric tons of sugar equivalent from these substitutes entered the Philippine market last year, Lorenzo said, severely weakening demand for natural sugar and hitting farmers’ incomes.
