Local sugar harvests may reach 1.84 million metric tons in the crop year 2023 to 2024, or 2.7 percent higher than 1.79 million MT a year ago, given a mild El Niño situation, based on a pre-milling estimate by the Sugar Regulatory Administration.
SRA administrator and chief executive Pablo Luis Azcona said an additional 50,000 MT of raw sugar output was expected, if the dry spell would not be as severe as predicted by experts as a long dry season favors sugarcane output.
“The outlook is basically very preliminary. That is based on the area planted [to sugarcane] and based on the production average last year,” Azcona said at the sidelines of the 2023 Sustainable Agriculture Forum organized by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines Thursday.
He said an increase in hectarage planted to sugarcane would contribute to a prospective increase in yield in crop year 2023-2024, despite the closure of a sugar mill in Batangas.
Yield may decline by 10 percent to 15 percent if the dry spell would be severe, Azcona said. The spate of strong typhoons in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first half of 2023 affected the projected output of 2.2 million MT, he said.
The PSA said a severe El Niño would hit growing sugarcane harvest.
Azcona said the projected output would be re-assessed on a mid-milling estimate to determine if the expected output was on track or if there was a need to revise it.
The Philippine sugar crop year starts on the first day of September until the last day of August of the following year.
The SRA said the country has ample stock of refined sugar, or about 200 percent better than last year’s and nearly two months worth of inventory, buffered by the government-sanctioned importation of 440,00 MT.