THE business sector sees a lesser impact of “tiempo muerto” or dead season in Negros Occidental because of urbanization, said Frank Carbon, chief executive officer of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“In fact, sugar planters have been clamoring for lack of laborers during the milling season that’s why most of them hire sacadas from other places outside the province,” Carbon said.
The month of August is considered dead season because it’s off-milling season for the sugar industry and people in the haciendas have no more cultivation works in the sugarcane plantations.
Carbon said the season has lesser impact now because of modernization where people in the rural and remote areas are already working in construction sector.
In fact, more money has been circulating this year compared to last year because of jobs offered in business process outsourcing, construction, and retail, and with money being sent by overseas Filipino workers.
To survive, government should pour in more support especially in terms of mechanization and modernization of the agricultural sector, including rice, corn, livestock, among others, Carbon said.
He added that vegetables in markets in the province are even coming from Iloilo, Bukidnon, and sometimes Baguio because local products cannot sustain the demand in the province.
Carbon also said several sugar planters have not milled their sugarcanes in the last milling season as they failed to beat the closing of the sugar mills.
Several planters fear the prices of sugar may not be that competitive this coming opening of the milling season because of the situation, he added.
