Sweets became part of people’s everyday life.

In every emotion that people experiencing,

people can’t take for granted what sweet foods, delicacies, and snacks can do to set their
mood. Nobody is surprised when I say that we Filipinos love sweets and they can always be
found in our every cuisine and recipes. It is evident that sweets were also making a big part to
people’s daily life and also to the society and economy as well.

However, with the dominant and in demand usage and consumption of sugar to manufacture
such delicacies and foods in the Philippines, there has been a persistent shortage of sugar that
affects the over-all food businesses or food industry in our country from small business
enterprises such as Sari-Sari Stores, Grocery Shops up to big business distributors such as Soda-
Making Manufacturers and other sugar product factories.

According to The Sugar Regulatory Administration, there has been a noticeable shortfall of
sugar supplies in the Philippines after a subpar harvest on the year 2021-2022 crop year. One of
the major reasons on why the price of sugar dramatically increased is because of the stockpiling
of some traders. Due to this, with the calculation of SRA, the shortage in sugar increased up to
300,000 metric tons of sugar for 2021-2022 crop year which is by result is significantly lower
and resulted in sugar cost increased.

Sugar crisis can be considered as one of the major issue in every country. It affects all aspects of
the country especially the economy sector, business sector, agriculture sector and even the
daily living of people. When sugar crisis continuously happened in a certain country, the sugar
cost will increase more that can result with the inflation of price of products which will affect
the business industries, consumers, traders and buyers. And due to the shortage, the country
would leave no choice but to import products from other countries that may result into bigger
cost and inflation problems.

Considering the condition of Philippines in terms of sugar-crisis, it greatly affects the livelihood
and business in the country especially the local farmers. It affects the local farmers because the
government were relentlessly and critically importing sugar from overseas due to to the
shortages. Sugar crisis affects everything at stake and may put livelihoods at risk such as the
soda-makers, bakeries and small eateries and etc. in the Philippines.

According to PHILSTAR – PHILIPPINES FACES WORSENING SUGAR WOES (August 2022), it says
that the country has been reeling from a sugar shortage in the past few months following the
sector’s missed production target caused by weather disturbances and high input costs, as well
as delayed implementation of an order to import the sweetener. This resulted in faster
increased of main sugar products like non-alcoholic beverages and food.It also pushes the wt
markets to increase their retail prices of sugar that affects mainly the Filipino consumers and
buyers in the wet markets.

While on the other hand, According to The STAR, Luzon Federation of Sugarcane Growers
Association (LuzonFed) president Arnel Toreja (2022), there is a need to import refined sugar to
immediately address the rising domestic prices and stabilize supply. With that, LUZFED
consulted their members nationwide, and have reached a consensus to allow the importation
of 300,000 MT of sugar, half of which should be for household consumers and the other half for
the industrial users, in consonance with the production figures and projections presented to us
by the SRA.

Another consideration aside from the weather disturbances that causes sugar crisis in the
Philipppines is the skyrocketing prices of fertilizers and other farm inputs. Local farmers were
being butthurt because of their farm inputs expenses that is why when time of harvest, they
have to adjust and get their satisfactory profit in return to their sugar farming expenditures.

According to Dr. Arranza (2022), in the Win-Win Solutions to the Philippines Sugar Crisis,
another outlook that resulting with Sugar crisis in our country is that many sugar plantations
were being transformed into housing, subdivisions and malls that results into low Philippines
sugar production. There is no enough spaces or area of farming to produce enough sugar in our
country. There are low number of programs that helps sugar farmers to have enough land
spaces to farm leading into not enough sugar production.

In conclusion, Refined Sugar Crisis in the Philippines doesn’t only exist before but is still a main
issue in today’s economy and continuously worsening which affects the country in many
aspects. This paper contributes in today’s arousing issues in the government and concerns
Filipinos. Sugar Crisis in the Philippines is not something that should be talk about but is
something to be addressed because it is a national issue and crisis that affects not only the
minimum-wager filipino consumers but also those big livelihoods, manufacturers and traders
and even the government.