By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

The United Sugar Producers Federation (UNIFED) has joined the call of other sugar groups and local officials in Negros Occidental for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) to immediately issue a price freeze amidst the skyrocketing cost of fertilizers.

UNIFED President Manuel Lamata said they have been appealing to DTI and DA since last year to implement a price cap on fertilizers or subsidize the cost but it seems their calls have been falling on deaf ears.

“When we first asked for help, the cost of urea fertilizers was already at P1,900 per 50-kilogram bag from the P800 to P900 price just a year ago. Now, it is being sold at P2,300 to P2,400. With the onset of the planting season, there will be many farmers who may not be able to afford fertilizers and this will affect production in the next crop year,” Lamata said.

He said the sugar industry is composed of 85 percent small farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries and their worry is that, with the high price of fertilizers plus the high cost of fuel and other agricultural inputs, these small farmers may not be able to survive to see another crop year.

He also finds it ironic that there are complaints about the high price of sugar “when it cannot even compensate with the high cost of all inputs we need to continue cultivating our sugar fields.”

“The DA and DTI have to move and address this before it gets out of hand,” Lamata said.

He further added that even their call for fertilizer subsidy, at the very least, has not been answered since last year.

On top of the fertilizer issue, Lamata also pointed out the oil price hike, in which oil is a basic commodity in all aspects of sugar planting, from land preparation to milling.

Lamata said diesel prices were less than P30 per liter two years ago and now it has breached the P50 per liter mark.

“How else can our small farmers survive when the price of fertilizers, fuel and other inputs is equal to or even more than the price of their produce. It is unacceptable and something has to be done. Worse is the inaction coming from the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) which should have addressed this before it reached this situation,” Lamata said.

Earlier, former SRA Board Member Atty. Dino Yulo said the unabated increase in fertilizer cost, despite their call for a freeze price increase, is causing trouble to the sugar industry now that the milling season is already peaking and sugar planting has commenced in many areas.

Yulo said the prices of fertilizers have more than doubled compared to last year.

Urea, which is the fertilizer grade most heavily used by farmers, was selling at around P900 per 50-kilogram bag about 18 months ago.

“We are now buying it at P2,300 to P2,400 per bag,” Yulo said./DGB, WDJ