March 3, 2025
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2025/03/03/sra-earmarks-funds-for-soil-equipment/
The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) has allotted P17 million for two soil equipment that will increase sugarcane productivity.
SRA Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona said the agency would procure two more units of inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) laboratory equipment that could fasttrack the analysis of soil samples.
The agency recently procured ICP-OES from France that was placed in Negros Island, the county’s top sugar-producing region.
Previously, the SRA analyzed 5,176 sugarcane stalk samples and 6,621 soil samples from 2020 to 2024. However, these figures were only based on the soil samples sent by farmers.
With the procurement of ICP-OES, the agency is expecting to analyze 5,760 soil samples annually. However, the SRA chief is hoping to analyze at least 10,000 soil samples this year.
“To make use of the equipment, I challenged [SRA personnel] to go out and collect the samples,” Azcona told reporters in a recent interview.
He said the modern soil analysis equipment will help in ensuring that the agency would be a frontrunner on research when it comes to the sugar industry.
The SRA chief noted that the two ICP-OES are set to undergo a procurement process this year, with a tentative delivery date by 2026.
The SRA said it is hopeful that sugar output would hit the agency’s forecast of 1.78 million metric tons (MMT) for the current crop year.
Data from the SRA showed that as of February 16, sugarcane production reached 13.07 MMT, 18.16 percent lower than the 15.97 MMT recorded in the previous year.
Despite this, the decline in sugarcane milled during the period was not as steep as the 27.75 percent drop recorded last January 12.
However, yield for sugarcane shrank by 11 percent to an average of 1.58 LKGTC [50-kilo bag per ton of cane] from 1.78 LKGTC a year earlier, based on SRA data.
“The only thing that keeps us hoping (that we’ll reach the projected output) is that the northern part of Negros is delayed in harvesting because of the weather,” Azcona said.
“So, if that’s true, then we have a chance to hit 1.78 MMT.”
SRA data indicated that raw sugar production as of February 16 stood at 1.01 MMT, about 28 percent lower than the 1.4 MMT recorded in the previous year.