DA spending P10 billion to boost sugar production

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) plans to invest almost P10 billion to construct solar-powered irrigation systems and rejuvenate soils to boost sugar production by 180,000 metric tons and reduce the country’s imports.

The DA is proposing to spend P8 billion for a three-year program that will build 16,000 units of small-scale solar irrigation systems with shallow tube wells, Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) administrator and CEO Pablo Luis Azcona said.

The project will be able to cover around 160,000 hectares of sugarcane farms nationwide, more than a third of the total planted area of 388,000 hectares, Azcona said.

The DA is also eyeing to implement a P1.65-billion soil rejuvenation program in key sugarcane producing areas in Luzon such as Batangas and Tarlac where lands have become highly acidic, which is detrimental to crop growth.

The project will involve the distribution of five metric tons of lime per hectare of sugarcane, Azcona said.

The two projects were proposed by the DA and SRA to President Marcos during a recent meeting at Malacañang. Azcona said the projects were “received very well” by Marcos.

The DA plans to include the irrigation project in its proposed 2026 budget. Meanwhile, the government may implement the soil rejuvenation program as early as October if there will be available budget or else it will start next year, Azcona said.

The SRA chief said the two projects would boost domestic output by 180,000 MT.

“The net result will be a yield increase of about P7.7 billion a year,” Azcona said.

“This will greatly lessen our dependence on imported sugar,” Azcona added.

The SRA earlier projected that the country’s raw sugar production in the current crop year could fall below 1.8 million MT, the lowest level in 25 years, after farms reeled from the effects of El Niño, resulting in stunted growth of sugarcanes.

The SRA estimated that raw sugar output in the current crop year 2024-2025 could decline by at least seven percent to 1.782 million MT from the previous crop year’s 1.922 million MT.

The projected raw sugar production in the current crop year could be the lowest output level in more than two decades or since the 1.619 million MT recorded in crop year 1999-2000.