Sugar production on track

MANILA, Philippines - Sugar production for the current crop year is in full swing, with mills already churning out 30 percent of target volume for the period, according to the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA).

SRA administrator Ma. Regina Martin said Typhoon Pablo inflicted minimal damage to standing sugarcane in provinces lying in its path.

She said the typhoon has damaged only six to eight percent of sugarcane production in the province of Bukidnon, which is equivalent to a production loss of 30,000 tons of sugar. She said this would not significantly affect sugar production for the current crop year.

“We are already in the peak of production,” said Martin, noting that all of the more than 30 sugar mills in the country, which are currently operational, have already produced 30 percent of the target volume for the current crop year.

The sugar milling season for the current crop year began last September and would end in August next year.

The SRA has set a sugar production target of 2.356 million metric tons (MT) for cropping year 2012 -2013, up five percent from the total raw sugar production volume of 2.243 million MT for crop year 2011-2012.

Considering the supply and demand scenarios for the United States, domestic and world markets, the Sugar Board promulgated the following allocations: ‘A” or US sugar, 10 percent; “B” or domestic sugar 82 percent; “D” or world market sugar, eight percent.

Data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) showed that production of sugarcane for all uses went up 57.34 percent to 935, 052 MT in the third quarter of 2012 from 594, 059 MT in the same period last year.

The top producers of sugarcane for the period were Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Bicol region and SOCCSKARGEN.

Around 96.54 percent of the sugarcane produced during the period were processed as sugar.

The SRA is currently encouraging exports to the world market to alleviate domestic glut.

As of November, the agency issued clearance for around 9,140 MT of sugar  to be exported in the world market, and another 14,000 MT to be shipped to Japan.