MANILA Filipinos are a people with a sweet tooth, but now they are suffering from a severe sugar shortage.
Sugar is an integral part of the Filipino diet. They add it to everything: bread, pasta, even meat dishes.
– I’m a little worried. If the government doesn’t do something, we will probably have less sugar during the festive season, says Jerome Reyes26.
He is on his lunch break at a food market in Taguig City, Metro Manila.
Christmas is the most important celebration of the year for Filipinos, and they start preparing for it as early as September.
We have learned to use a lot of sugar in the Philippines, because there has always been a lot of it produced in the country.
Sugarcane is the fifth most important crop in the Philippines, and the sugar industry employs half a million Filipinos.
Nevertheless, sugar is now more expensive in the country than ever.
Coca-Cola had to close its factories
The seriousness of the situation was revealed in August, when the beverage companies Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and ARC Refreshments published a rare of a warning (you will switch to another service): they don’t have enough of their most important raw material, i.e. sugar, for the rest of the year.
Coca-Cola Philippines had to close (you switch to another service) temporarily 30–40 percent of their production lines. The availability of soft drinks is right now (you switch to another service) weakened in small shops.
It’s not just about the amount of sugar but also quality (you switch to another service). Beverage companies need extra fine, bottling quality sugar, which is not available in the Philippines.
Sugar smuggling is tempting
The situation is special because the Philippines is the world 13. largest (you switch to another service) sugar producing country and has directed almost all of its sugar to domestic consumption.
The country has exported sugar mainly to its former mother country, the United States, with which it has relations special sugar quota (you switch to another service).
However, sugar has been around for a long time in the Philippines significantly more expensive (you switch to another service) than the world average. During the last year, the price is still doubled (you switch to another service).
The contradiction is explained by the fact that agriculture in the Philippines is inefficient and lagging behind comparable countries, says a professor of environmental sciences Antonio Contreras from the University of the Philippines.
– Our agriculture is in great difficulty because it has not managed to modernize, Contreras says in a video interview from the Los Baños campus.
The sugar business in the Philippines is highly protected and regulated: the cultivation of sugar has been subsidized with large sums, and its import from abroad has been prevented with tariffs of up to 60 percent.
Despite that – or precisely because of that – the industry has not developed. Machines, factories or methods have not been renewed, and good farmlands have been turned into shopping centers or residential areas, says Contreras.
At the same time, high import duties are tempting to smuggle sugar into the country, which, according to Contreras, does not happen without the approval of the administration. Too many power-hungry people benefit from the current situation, he says.
This harvest year, the Philippines’ sugar harvest has been further weakened by typhoon Rai in December and the increase in fertilizer and energy prices caused by the Russian war.
President: the sugar shortage has been invented
The sugar crisis has created a peculiar political controversy in the Philippines.
President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos according to the country, there is no shortage of sugar, but certain parties have only stolen and hoarded Philippine sugar. Marcos himself is also the minister responsible for agriculture.
He wants to avoid buying foreign, cheap sugar at all costs because it would hurt local farmers.
Sugar refiners (you switch to another service) according to the shortage is real.
However, the country’s Senate is focused on investigating whether officials committed a crime when they signed an order to buy 300,000 tons of sugar from abroad in August.
“Fiasco” (you switch to another service) after it was revealed, President Marcos only approved half of that amount for importation and fired the officials in question.
According to Professor Antonio Contreras, the discussion is crazy because it seems clear that the Philippines will have to import much more sugar this year.
The beverage giants alone have said they need 450,000 tons of sugar at the end of the year in order to continue the production of soft drinks in the Philippines.
So far, the only solution the government has come up with has been sugar price regulation (you switch to another service): supermarket chains sell sugar at a fixed price per kilo – one package per customer.
President-Minister of Agriculture Marcos’ challenges are not limited to sugar: the Philippines is currently in short supply of, among other things, salt and onions.
Could you do without sugar or lemonade? You can discuss the topic until Saturday at 11 pm.
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