People's Recovery, Empowerment and
Development Assistance Foundation, Inc.

A sunrise industry the country has to nurture, the local muscovado sugar should take up a significant part of the organic food and health products market foreseen to increase to $100 billion by 2008 even as Japan is interested in importing this from the Philippines.

Jerry Pacturan, Philippine Development Assistance Program (PDAP) executive director, said that in light of the present uncompetitiveness in the refined sugar sector, the Philippines should encourage growth of an alternative sugar sector that has a strong potential for growth in capturing an export market.

Far from its neighboring countries' competitive prices, retail refined sugar price in the country is at P25.34 per kilo while that of Thailand is only P11.15 per kilo and Malaysia, P15.44 per kilo.
While the Philippines may not be competitive in refined sugar production, he indicated the country can still tap a niche in muscovado sugar, more known to be the organic brown sugar that uses an old milling technique or one that makes use of low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA or reduced use of chemical fertilizer).

At an average farmgate price of P14 to P20 per kilo, outlet price averages are at a more attractive P50 to P59.50 per kilo which although high may be marketable in the eyes of health-conscious foreign markets.

Nicolasito Calawag, provincial agriculturist of Antique, one of the Philippines' biggest muscovado producer, said Japanese customers have expressed interest to buy muscovado from Antique, but the province's problem is limited muscovado volume.

"Japanese investors went to antique and want to buy nuscovado. But they want at least 600 tons per shipment. I think the price is very attractive. But their quality requirement is very difficult. They want consistency in color, but our sugar's color differs in each of the mills. We said that's impossible unless we centralize the milling," he said.

Despite being the Philippines' second largest muscovado producer in terms of area with a total of 664 hectares, Calawag admitted sugarcane planting and milling practices in Antique are backward. Sugarcane yield is just at two metric tons (MT) of cane per hectare while Philippine muscovado sugarcane average is at 30 to 50 MT of cane per hectare. Besides, he said that since the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) put up irrigation systems in Antique, most farmers chose to plant rice instead of sugarcane.

Calawag said Antique also needs to upgrade packaging since "the Japanese people have a different taste. You need first to satisfy their eyes."

PDAP said the $10.5 million organic sugar market for the Philippines since 1983 were Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and US.

There are presently 300 small mills in 11 provinces in the country with Antique having the most mills of more than 100. The rest are in Negros Occidental which has the second largest area of 510 hectares which are all milled by exporterAlter Trade; Tarlac which takes some technology from a town refined sugar central, Hacienda Luisita; Pangasinan; and Sultan Kudarat. [End]