Sugar farmers group wants P15-20 per kilo hike

Sugar farmers are seeking to raise the suggested retail price of sugar to around P85 to P90 per kilogram from the current P70 per kilo to recover from the devastation caused by severe tropical storm "Paeng."

In a press statement over the weekend, the Unified Federation of Sugar Producers wants President FerdinandMarcos Jr.'s intervention to raise the prices of the commodity.

"Our sugar farmers need help to recover from the damage caused by the recent typhoon that has inundated hundreds of sugar farms from north to south and the rest of the Visayas," UNIFED president Manuel Lamata said.

Lamata added that he is confident that the President, as the head of the Agriculture department, will understand the situation as the storm has not only cost lives but millions, perhaps billions of damage to the agriculture industry.

The group is also asking millgate prices to increase by P60 from the current price, which ranges from P2,900/LKg to "hopefully stabilize at P3,000 per bag."

Before the storm, Lamatasaid,millgate prices were already going down but seeing the damage it wrought, the industry would need immediate assistance to bring up the retail SRP until farmers will be able to recover.

While sugar prices have gone down, Lamata pointed out that fertilizers and fuel prices are still on the rise, and compounded with the storm's damage, sugar farmers will have a hard time surviving this time.

The damage and losses incurred by the agriculture sector following the onslaught of "Paeng" have ballooned to P1.33 billion.

Based on the ongoing assessment of the Department of Agriculture, 53,849 farmers were affected and 64,607 hectares of farmlands with a combined volume of production loss of 11,761 metric tons were devastated by the typhoon.