By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Tatak Kalamay, a group comprised of planters association, agrarian reform groups, labor organizations, and sugar workers, has called on the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to explain their production estimates for the current crop year. According to group spokesperson Raymond Montinola, SRA records show, over the past four crop years, except for one, their estimates have been “way off.”
“This is very disconcerting since production estimates influence market forces and determine how SRA crafts its policies,” he explained.
The current production estimates for the 2019-2020 crop year are 2.096M metric tons (MT), 23,000 MT higher than last year’s actual production of 2.073M MT.
“This seeming penchant of SRA to overestimate production by huge margins instead of reflecting the realities on the ground is extremely harmful to the industry because these figures are also the [basis] for drafting sugar orders and in determining implementation of the importation program,” Montinola added.
In previous years, projections have been overestimated by as much as 297,000 MT.
Joseph Edgar Sarrosa, also of Tatak Kalamay, said the SRA, in a recent statement, reported a slight decline in production, which he explained, “Belittled what that percentage, in terms of income, can spell for our small farmers.”
“The agency also claimed a reduction in area planted to sugarcane of 8,000 hectares,” Sarrosa noted. “This reduction means a reduction in production of about 600,000 bags of sugar.”
“This fact was clearly not inputted (sic) in this year’s production estimates,” he added.
Meanwhile, Clarence Ortiz, another Tatak Kalamay convenor, said their group is joining other industry stakeholders in opposing the five percent US quota allocation.
“This is around 100,000 metric tons, priced way below domestic sugar,” he explained../DGB, WDJ