Philippines : SRA taps Japan university to improve sugar industry
The Philippines’ Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) has entered a three-year partnership with the University of Tokyo to enhance sugarcane productivity, particularly for small-scale farmers. This collaboration focuses on developing high-yielding varieties, improving milling efficiency, and exploring value-added products like biofuels and biochar. By adopting Japanese technologies suited for small farms, the SRA aims to boost yields and support the sugar industry’s growth.
MANILA, Philippines — The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) is keen on learning and adopting Japanese technologies and practices that will help sugarcane planters, especially small-scale producers, boost their productivity.
The SRA signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with the University of Tokyo to facilitate exchange learning between the two entities in the field of sugarcane.
Under the MOU, the two parties will collaborate on developing high-yielding varieties and more efficient milling practices, including better extraction of biofuels from sugarcane.
The SRA will also learn how to conduct other value-adding processes on sugarcane that allows farmers to produce fuel for aviation as well as products like biochar.
“Since the farm sizes in Japan are small, we will learn a lot on making the one to two-hectare farms produce a lot more,” SRA administrator and CEO Pablo Luis Azcona said.
“Even their machines like harvesters are suited for smaller farms,” Azcona added.
In exchange, the University of Tokyo delegates would learn economies of scale from the country since local sugarcane farms are “far bigger” than Japan’s, Azcona said.
For comparison, the country’s total sugarcane area is about 388,000 hectares while Japan’s sugar industry is only around 22,000 hectares, Azcona added.
Furthermore, Japan has an average yield of 70 metric tons (MT) of sugarcane per hectare, significantly higher than the country’s 50 MT per hectare average.
Japan’s sugar mills also have a better extraction efficiency of 96 to 98 percent compared to the country’s 94 percent, Azcona said.
Azcona said the SRA also has an ongoing research efforts with Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences that seeks to introduce better climate-resilient sugarcanes in the country. The SRA chief explained that the varieties brought by Japan in the Philippines can withstand strong winds and even typhoons. The varieties have a strong root system that can also survive and thrive in both dry and wet climactic conditions.
“So we will give them what we think is the best (variety)for us and they will see if it will work for them,” he said.
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Source : Philstar Global
