Sugar supply enough — SRA

There will be sweet "ber" months leading to the Yuletide holidays.

This as the Sugar Regulatory Administration, or SRA, on Thursday assured the public of enough sugar this year, pointing out that prices of the sweetener have been stable.

SRA Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona said he sees an increase of 1.85 million metric tons in the supply from local harvests this month. In comparison, consumer demand could reach up to 2.3 million metric tons.

The SRA recently ordered the importation of 46,375 metric tons of refined sugar.

With the additional supply, Azcona said the country will have buffer stocks of raw sugar to last for at least two months and enough supply of refined sugar.

He said all sugarcane harvests will be slated for domestic consumption to prevent a supply shortage, especially since El Niño threatens to slow the harvest.

"There's a possibility of a 10 percent to 15 percent decline in the sugar harvest depending on the severity of El Niño, which is expected to persist until January next year," he said.

"In the past, we classified local sugar into class A for the US market, B for domestic, and C for the world market," he added.

Due to the sustained growth in local sugar production, Azcona said retail prices have decreased since February last year, driven by a lower farm gate price of P60 per kilo.

Farm clustering

"Prices have not moved since that time. Refined sugar prices have remained at P85 per kilo to P110 per kilo in the supermarkets," he said.

Azcona said the government is speeding up its cluster of small-scale farms of one to two hectares into single farms of 30 hectares or bigger to ensure higher local sugar production.

He said that officials are also distributing cash aid to farmers so they can buy new tractors or for startup capital.

Agriculture officials, Azcona said, will also distribute over 80 tractors and farming tools worth P300 million from the Japanese government.