Milling season timing divides sugar industry

Updated on August 17, 2024 at 1:52 p.m.

Two sugar groups are split over a proposal to postpone the start of the milling season to mid-September, a move seen to increase farmers’ yield and income.

The United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines (Unifed) said it’s always the right practice to delay milling “a bit” to give sugarcanes time to ripen.

The sugar crop year typically begins on Sept.1 and ends on Aug. 31 of the following year. The end of each crop year marks the start of harvesting and milling.

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“And yes, it will increase our production in the end,” Unifed president Manuel Lamata said in a Viber message on Thursday.

But the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NFSP) doesn’t agree.

“We should also consider that we experienced much rainfall in the past months, which boosted the growth of our canes. Now we have mostly sunny weather, and we should take advantage of this to expedite, instead of delay, our harvest,” NFSP president Enrique Rojas said in a text message on Thursday evening.

Rojas said the milling should start soon as the early close of the previous milling season had left domestic farmers “cash-strapped” and are recovering “from the long dead season.”

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He pointed out that when the opening of the last milling season was deferred, it did not translate to higher prices and productivity.

“Sugar farmers are apprehensive that the same thing will happen if the opening of milling will be delayed this coming crop year,” Rojas said.

“El Niño had little effect on production, as evidenced by the increase in production this crop year compared to last year. Moreover, prices this year were much lower than in the previous crop year,” he added.

The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) said on Thursday that several farmers’ groups were clamoring to adjust the beginning of the milling season for crop year 2024-2025 by at least two weeks.

SRA Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona had said this proposal would enable some local producers to recuperate from the impact of the El Niño-induced dry spell on their harvests.

Azcona said the milling schedule was expected to be finalized within the week as mills and farmers were still discussing the matter.

He had said it would be a “win-win” solution if millers could get their acts together and agree to a two-week delay.

The SRA also recognized that while big planters can afford the delay, small farmers may not afford to wait for any delay in collecting earnings even for two weeks.

“Nobody expected the effects of the long drought and many, if not all, are just at the recovery period now. Harvesting the canes by Sept. 15 will yield less sugar for farmers,” he said.

“Moreover, if most farmers are not willing to cut their canes prematurely, it will be a problem for the mills as they might have intermittent operations, which will be costly in the long run. We need our mills to run efficiently and in full capacity,” he added.

The SRA already hinted at allocating the entire local production for the upcoming crop year to the domestic market, anticipating that local production remains insufficient.

Sugar output hit 1.9 million metric tons in crop year 2023-2024, lower than the estimated demand of 2.3 million MT to 2.4 million MT.