“Sugar importation is not the solution for lower retail sugar prices because the landed cost of imported sugar will be higher than our present prices,” National Federation of Sugar Planters president Enrique Rojas said in an NFSP press release.

Rojas was reacting to the proposal of Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila to import sugar, purportedly to curb the alleged high sugar prices in the country, the press release said.

“There is no shortage of domestic supply of sugar. Domestic sugar prices are just responding to the stimulus of world sugar supply and demand dynamics. Our present domestic sugar prices are just normal pricing reactions to market forces,” Rojas said in the press release.

2,000 join farmers,
fisherfolks meet

More than 2,000 farmers and fisherfolks from all over the province gathered at the Bacolod Pavilion Plenary Hall yesterday to attend the opening ceremonies of the Farmers and Fisherfolks Summit 2009 with the theme, “Paghugpong sang Mangunguma kag Mangingisda Sabat sa Hangkat sang Panahon,” a press release from the province said.

The first summit in Negros Occidental spearheaded by the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, aims to support the Fertilizer, Irrigation, Extension and farmers' training and education, Loans, Dryers and other post harvest facilities and infrastructure, and Seeds projects under the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani Program of the Department of Agriculture and the HEARTS PLUS Program of the Provincial Government.

GMO stand pushed

Green Alert Negros yesterday urged the provincial government not to consider lifting the ban on genetically-modified organisms because of “pressures” coming from poultry and hog raisers and the favorable view of international experts on commercial GMO.

Board Members Enrique Lacson, Edgardo Acuña and Nehemias de la Cruz attended a recent GMO summit in Melbourne, Australia which stressed co-existence of organic and GM products.

Lacson, who supports the proposed changes in the provincial GMO ban, said that speakers at the summit argued that the question on co-existence between GM products and organic produce is just a matter of “market strategy.”

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