As of 2005, the Philippines was the ninth largest sugar producer in the world and second largest sugar producer among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, after Thailand, according to Food and Agriculture Organization. At least seventeen provinces of the Philippines have grown sugarcane, of which the two on Negros Island account for half of the nation's total production. As of crop year 2009–2010, 29 sugar mills are operational divided as follows: thirteen mills on Negros, six mills on Luzon, four mills on Panay, three mills in Eastern Visayas and three mills on Mindanao.
Sugarcane is not a sensitive crop and can be grown in almost all types of soil, from sandy to clay loams and from acidic volcanic soils to calcareous sedimentary deposits. The harvest period is from October to December and ends in May.
In 2015, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Philippines announced that they will include the Industrial Sugar Central Sites of the Philippines and related properties to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
History
The history of the sugarcane cultivation in the Philippines pre-dates Spanish colonization. Sugarcane, specifically Saccharum sinense, is one of the original major crops of the Austronesian peoples (which includes Filipinos), since at least 3500 BCE. It reached the Philippines from Taiwan with the Austronesian Expansion by around 2200 BCE. Words for sugarcane are reconstructed as *təbuS or *CebuS in Proto-Austronesian, which became *tebuh in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (cf. Filipino tubó). Saccharum officinarum was later acquired from early farming cultures in Papua New Guinea and gradually replaced S. sinense throughout its cultivated range in maritime Southeast Asia.
Sugarcane was traditionally used in the pre-colonial Philippines for making various native jaggery products (collectively called panutsa, like pakombuk, sangkaka and bagkat bao) used in cooking. It was also widely used to make traditional wines like palek, byais, basi, intus, and pangasi. Sugarcane juice is also fermented into traditional cane vinegars in the Philippines (variously called sukang basi, sukang maasim, or sukang iloko). Traditional cane vinegar is associated with sugarcane wine-making.
Sugarcane farming became an industry after 1856 when Nicholas Loney, a British Vice-Consul, was sent to Iloilo City and convinced the American house of Russell & Sturgis to open a branch in Iloilo for the purpose of giving crop loans to sugar planters. Loney through his firm, Loney and Kee Company, facilitated the fast development of sugar industry by importing sugar cuttings from Sumatra and machinery from England and Scotland to Iloilo, which the sugar planters can buy on easy installment loans. Loney also built sailing boats called lorcha (boat)s, patterned after the Brixham trawlers used for deep-sea fishing in the English channel, at Buenavista on Guimaras Island to transport sugar from Negros Island. Envisioning the prosperity of a sugar industry in Visayas in the near future, Loney initiated its development in Negros and offered liberal terms to a few Negrense planters similar to those he had given the Ilonggo planters. Consequently, some prominent Ilonggo sugarcane planters like the Ledesma, Lacson, Hilado, Cosculluela, Pérez, Alvarez, Sotamayor and Escanilla families moved to Negros in 1857 due to its promising development. The raw sugar which the Visayas' main product was exported to the United States, England and Australia. Crystal grain sugar was the product of Manila which was exported primarily to Spain.
The Philippines main agricultural export commodity (late 1700s–1970s)
Sugar became the most important agricultural export of the Philippines between the late eighteenth century and the mid-1970s because of two main reasons: 1) foreign exchange earned and 2) it was the basis of wealth accumulation of some Filipino elite at that time. To ensure the continuous growth and development of sugar industry under the Philippine Commonwealth government, Philippine Sugar Administration (PSA) was established in 1937 to oversee the industry.
After the Second World War the Sugar Quota Administration (SQA) replaced PSA in 1951 vis-à-vis with Philippine Sugar Institute (PHILSUGIN), a research agency. During the 1950s and 1960s, more than 20 percent of Philippine exports came from the sugar industry. It declined in the 1970s and plunged further in the first half of the 1980s to roughly 7 percent. It was during this period that the government acknowledged the existence of crisis in the industry. One of the factors that contributed to the worsening situation of the industry during that time was the depressed market for sugar.