by: Reynold D. Tan, Joy C. Lizada, Bonifaco Cerbo
The long-term sustainability of industries such as agri-food production systems is essential in the light of pressures to satisfy diverse customer needs, to comply with government regulations, and to maintain a business’s core competency. This has led to the identification of the best management practices for highly critical and important commodities, as in the case of muscovado sugar. This paper attempts to gauge the performance of sugarcane production and management technology for use in the muscovado sugar production in the province of Antique vis-à-vis recommended production management practices. A survey was conducted in seven sugarcane-producing municipalities with 79 respondents, determined using the 2-stage random sampling. The level of production technology was evaluated using the scale of technology adopted by the farmers. Results show that the industry is on a par with best management practices in the areas of planting practices, planting material selection, closing in timing, harvesting practices, trash management, shuttle shaving, and variety programming. The industry in the Province lags behind in the areas of soil preparation and fertilizer application. It is recommended that all interventions geared towards improving the industry performance be anchored on evidence-based research findings. Moreover, it is further recommended that, to improve productivity in sugarcane production, the industry in Antique has to capitalize on its strengths while working on towards the improvement of critical areas mentioned.
Keywords: muscovado sugar, benchmarking, performance metrics, indicators