"FARMERS need help from the government to address soaring costs of production."
This call was issued by Raymond Montinola, national president of the Confederation of Sugarcane Planters Associations (Confed), following a Board Meeting of the federation held Thursday, November 11 in Bacolod City.
"The cost of Urea and other fertilizers have gone beyond affordable levels, especially for our small farmers," Montinola explained, adding that "with Urea at P2,000 per bag, our farmers will most likely reduce their inputs, leading to sudden drops in production."
"We are not talking only about sugarcane growers," Montinola stressed, "but also about rice and other farmers who depend on fertilizers to maintain their production."
The Confed president expressed apprehension that this development would constitute a serious threat to the country's quest for food security and will again push the government to resort to massive food imports.
"Unmitigated and untimely food imports have proven time and again to be ruinous to our farmers," he claimed.
Montinola said food imports are okay when necessary, but experience tells us that this always hurts the Filipino farmer.
"We appeal to the government to look for real solutions to food security other than just imports. We will do our share in finding appropriate alternatives, but we want to see the government working with us, not against us," Montinola said.
"Confed calls on the government to find ways to provide Filipinos with available, affordable and safe food that is locally produced," Montinola said, emphasizing that the best way is to make Filipino farmers competitive, efficient and productive.
The Confed Board had earlier discussed concerns over rapidly rising costs of sugarcane production on top of other challenges confronting the industry, which are currently being addressed by a technical group reviewing the prescriptions and recommendations of the Sugar Road Map.
During the meeting, the group also discussed the government's announced plan to institute a "sugar import quota," a proposal apparently pushed by industrial users for the government to allow importation of their refined sugar requirements.
"Imported sugar may be cheaper now," Montinola explained, adding that "but government must be aware that these imports, first of all, are subsidized and do not reflect real production costs."
The Confed president warned against over-dependence on subsidized imports that would hurt local farmers.
"It's good while subsidized food commodities are still available, but what if they are no longer available or cheap?" he asked, pointing out the possibility that "we may no longer have local farmers who can produce our own food if we kill them with cheap subsidized imports!"
Asked what his federation proposed, Montinola said his group reiterates its position on sugar imports that remains consistent with their previous stand on the issue.
"We remain firm in our stand that sugar imports must be done in a calibrated and timely manner," Montinola said, "based on hard data covering validated supply and demand projections.
Montinola stressed that "imports cannot be haphazard, ill-timed, and must be done in a transparent manner that is fair to all end-users, not just a few.
"It must be done," Montinola said, adding that "in such a manner as to not cause undue damage to domestic sugar producers, who are already suffering from steep increases in their cost of production."
The federation president appealed to the government "to lend a more attentive ear to Filipino farmers, especially at this time when agriculture faces so many challenges, and everyone is suffering from the Covid pandemic." (PR)