By Edgar Cadagat

Opposition against escalating sugar prices by militant organizations composed of sugar workers’ groups, and other marginalized sectors, have declared thet they were vehemently against the government’s plan to import 150,000 metric tons of sugar in the coming months.

If indeed there is a shortage of sugar and that it is in short supply, it is the government itself that must be blamed for this as it has not taken long-range steps to increase productivity of the commodity. Among the causes of low production, the alliance sugar watch pointed out, was that lands are unproductive because government has not provided inputs to farmers and farm workers who were able to gain access to landholdings through the CARP. Many thousands of hectares of land now lie idle and unproductive while thousands of hectares are removed from production of sugar as they have been subjected to land conversions.

Sugar Watch has issued a statement distributed yesterday during a press conference.

The alliance also slammed sugar traders and smugglers, whom it said are benefiting from the present situation. By imposing a price ceiling on the commodity, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has only removed the competitiveness of local sugar with the intent to trade it in the world market as far as traders are concerned. Worse, inspite of the high prices of domestic sugar, there has been no trickle-down effects on the farm workers and their dependents who number in the millions, a spokesman Guillermo Barreta Jr. said.

Among the demands of sugar watch are to protect the local economy from the onslaught of globalization, deliver services for agricultural productivity and competency especially to Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs), small farmers and for farm workers, mill workers and service workers to deliver services and incentive to the industry.

Earlier, another alliance led by the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), Anakpawis political Partylist, and Gabriela-Negros, declared their militant opposition against sugar importation saying the declared estimated sugar production for crop year 2009-2010 is a huge 2.16 metric tons. Traders in cahoots with the DTI are pushing for the importation, the militant alliance had said.*