By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

It will be a good start for 2023 for the sugar industry as sugar prices strongly rebounded after a three-week slide.

Former Sugar Regulatory Administration board member, Emilio Yulo said sugar producers are happy to see sugar prices bounce back after almost a month of downward slump.

“Prices have breached the P3,000 per 50-kilo bag, which will make it a little bit profitable for our farmers who were on their toes in the past weeks, seeing the downtrend in sugar prices,” Yulo said.

The current price is “comfortable enough to ease the fears among the planters,” he added.

He said there is a “misconception” that planters earn from the high cost of retail sugar that continues to prevail in metro areas, not knowing that in the past weeks, “planters have barely broken even with the slump in mill gate prices.”

The national government should continue to temper consumer prices and warn those who capitalize on the sugar issue because “there is no reason for retail prices to run away as we have enough sugar supply and the milling season is still ongoing,” he said.

Yulo also urged the government to take a look at the entire supply chain to determine who is making a windfall from the high retail prices, because it is definitely not the sugar farmers.

He said the government can also, perhaps, take a look at lifting the reformed value added tax as a means to temper retail prices on consumer items like sugar.

“With this new development, the farmers will openly welcome and usher in the New Year with positivity and hope,” he said./DGB, WDJ