In Negros Occidental, sugar has always been more than a crop. It is memory, livelihood, politics, and promise—rolled into one brown crystal. So when millgate prices slide to levels that barely cover production costs, it is not just the planters who feel the sting. The entire island does.
It has been said time and again, "In Negros, when sugar sneezes, the whole island catches a cold". That old saying has never felt truer than it does today, as millgate prices sink to levels that insult not only the planter’s labor but also his patience, dignity, and capacity to keep going.
These days, the numbers are difficult to defend, even harder to explain. Millgate prices hovering at ₱2,300 to ₱2,500 per LKG are being passed off as “market realities,” but for many planters—from San Carlos to Kabankalan, from La Carlota even to the Oriental side of the island—these figures translate plainly into loss. The fertilizer bill alone has doubled in recent years. Labor costs, fuel, hauling, and mill deductions have not gone down. Only the price of sugar seems stubbornly eager to fall.
In the milling districts, the conversations are constant. Outside the gates of the mills, one hears planters quietly comparing quedans, doing mental arithmetic, wondering how long they can hold on. In Talisay and Silay, small planters speak of postponing replanting. In La Castellana and Moises Padilla, some talk openly about shifting crops—not because they want to, but because sugar no longer loves them back.
The rippled conversations are no longer just contained in Negros. You hear it in the golf courses. You hear it even among the Negros Titos and Titas of Rockwell in Makati.
The Negros Titas of RockwellWhat makes the situation more galling is that consumers in the cities do not see these low prices reflected on store shelves. Retail sugar remains expensive, feeding the old suspicion that somewhere between the field and the market, value is being captured by everyone except the farmer. Millers cite global prices. Traders cite logistics. Policymakers cite imports. Meanwhile, the planter absorbs the shock, as he always has.
Negros has seen crises before. We remember the dark years when Ferdinand Marcos Sr. plundered the sugar industry, when hunger stalked the sugar farms, and when migration became survival. We were told then that diversification was the answer. Many tried. Some succeeded. But sugar remained—because it is what the land knows, what the mills are built for, what generations have invested their lives in.
Today’s crisis may not look as dramatic, but it is no less corrosive. It erodes confidence quietly. It forces compromises—skipping fertilizer applications, delaying field maintenance, cutting back on workers who themselves have few alternatives. Every peso lost at the millgate ripples outward, touching sari-sari stores, transport drivers, sacadas, and town economies that still revolve around milling schedules.
One planter from Sagay put it simply: “Kung amo ni pirme, wala na lang sang rason magpadayon.” If this is how it will always be, there is no reason to continue.
Government assurances have not helped much. We hear of studies, of balancing acts between farmers and consumers, of the need to stabilize supply. But stabilization cannot mean permanently depressing farmgate prices while input costs rise unchecked. Imports, when mismanaged or mistimed, have a way of landing squarely on Negros fields. By the time the damage is acknowledged, the crop cycle has already moved on, and the losses are locked in.
Mills, too, must reflect. They are pillars of their communities, not just processing facilities. Transparency in deductions, efficiency in operations, and genuine dialogue with planters matter more now than ever. When trust erodes, even the strongest industry becomes fragile.
This is not a call for nostalgia, nor for protectionism disguised as patriotism. It is a call for fairness and foresight. If sugar is to survive in Negros Occidental, it must make economic sense for those who grow it. Otherwise, we will wake up one day to find fields abandoned, mills silent, and an island wondering how it let its foundation quietly crumble.
Sugar built Negros, but Negros also sustained sugar—through wars, price crashes, and policy shifts. The relationship has never been easy, but it has endured. Whether it will continue to do so depends on decisions made now, while the prices are low, the voices are still speaking, and the bitterness has not yet turned into resignation.
When sugar turns bitter in Negros, it is not just an industry problem. It is a warning. An ominous warning we've heard time and again.
