THE country’s sugar industry has been performing well amid the prevailing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, an official of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) said.

SRA Board Member Emilio Yulo III, representing the planters, said the industry is about 50 percent higher than last crop year in terms of gross tons of canes milled.

But the pureza or the measure of sugar concentration is a little bit lesser compared last year, Yulo said.

“We hope the situation continues, particularly when the weather gets hotter as it will contribute to improving the pureza of our planters,” he said, adding that “our tonnage this time is favorable.”

In terms of price, it fell to about P1,500 per 50 kilo-bag “which is at least profitable to our producers as well as fair to our consumers.”

Yulo hoped that the balance will continue now that Christmas season is near. During this time, the demand side is traditionally heavy towards the summer period.

“We hope that all of these things will fall into place, so the agriculture sector will continue to deliver despite that we are still in a pandemic,” he added.

The official attributed the industry’s good performance, particularly the milling speed, to the unhampered activities especially of the sugar centrals.

There have been no Covid-19 cases in the centrals. Also, there were no reports on sugarcane communities that were locked down during this milling season, Yulo said.

For him, those for “sakadas” or sugarcane workers who tested positive for coronavirus are only isolated cases.

“Though our sugarcane workers were subjected to stringent measures including the mandatory RT-PCR test for Covid-19, we are still grateful to the Provincial Governments of Antique and Negros Occidental for allowing them to travel to work,” he added.

As to whether the industry will exceed the production this year, Yulo said “we have yet to take a better look of the figures by January next year.”