BY CARLA GOMEZ (Visayan Daily Star) | https://goo.gl/gYwJ4l
Janaury 23, 2017
Sugar industry stakeholders yesterday reiterated their appeal for President Rodrigo Duterte to immediately stop the release of all pending High Fructose Corn Syrup shipments of the Bureau of Customs and prohibit, or strictly regulate HFCS importation.
The Sugar Solidarity Against HFCSalso called on all sugar industry stakeholders, local and national government officials and the Sugar Regulatory Administration to put up a united front in stopping, or strictly regulating, the importation of HFCS.
The group said continued entry of HFCS into the country is detrimental to the sugar industry and the millions of Filipinos who depend on the industry for their survival.
“The unabated and massive importation ofHFCS constitutes economic sabotage in the guise of free trade and globalization, creating profits for multi-national corporations at the expense of marginalized farmers and their families,” the Sugar Solidarity Against HFCS said.
The SSA-HFCS said that from 2011 to 2016, beverage makers and food processors imported almost 800,000 metric tons of HFCS into the country, displacing the demand for 23 million 50-kilo bags of locally produced sugar and depriving the country, particularly the sugar industry, of P35.2 billion in potential income.
IMPORTATION EFFECT
For Crop Year 2016-17, HFCS importation has driven down sugar prices from a high of more than P1,800/bag in September 2016 to less than P1,500/bag in December 2016, translating to potential revenue losses of about P20 billion for the current crop year, the SSA-HFCS said in its appeal for the president's help.
Eighty-five percent of the 90,000 sugar farmers cultivate farms of 10 hectares or less while 75 percent are mostly ARBs who cultivate farms of five hectares or less, it said.
About 700,000 sugarcane farm workers and 14,000 sugar mill workers depend solely on the sugar industry to feed and clothe their families and send their children to school, it added.
Negros accounts for more than 60percent of national sugar production.
UNFOLDING SCENARIO
When sugar prices crashed in the mid-1980s, Negros sugar farmers could not afford to plant sugarcane, the farm workers had no work and, thus, no income to buy food, and the children in the sugarcane farms of Negros went hungry. A similar scenario is unfolding, the SSA-HFCS warned.
HFCS importation threatens the sole livelihood and the very existence of millions of marginal sugarcane farmers, farm workers and their families, who will be the hardest hit by the continued drop in prices, as sugar is their only source of income, it said.
“Their meager income from the sugar industry is their only lifeline. If the industry collapses due to the importation of HFCS by greedy, profit-oriented, socially irresponsible multi-national corporations, Negros might be facing a socio-economic volcano similar to what happened when sugar prices crashed in the mid-1980s,” the appeal added.
Numerous studies have also shown that consumption of HFCS, particularly HFCS produced from genetically modified corn, is hazardous to health, the SSA-HFCS said.
SIGNATORIES
The appeal was signed by Archie Baribar - KilusangPagbabago-Negros Island Region, Ranie Lava - agrarian reform beneficiary, HernaniBraza - National Congress of Unionsin the Sugar Industry of the Philippines – Trade Union Congress of the Philippines secretary general;
Enrique Rojas, National Federation of Sugarcane Planters president, Manuel Lamata III - United SugarProducers Federation of the Philippines president, and Francis dela Rama, Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations president.*CPG