BACOLOD CITY - Groundbreaking research by a lean and mean private foundation has placed the Philippines on the map as the research and development (R&D) center for the sugar industries of the developing world.

"We will become the training center" for sugar-producing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Leon Arceo, director general of the Philippine Sugar Research Institute (Philsurin), said here following a briefing he gave for participants to the recent International Sugar Development Forum.

The event, hosted by Philsurin through the UN's Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and International Sugar Organization (ISO), had drawn sugar industry experts and leaders from Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania and Thailand.

Arceo said many of the participating countries had put in requests to have scientists and other sugar experts train with Philsurin. At the briefing he gave, several participants also hoped they could replicate what Philsurin has been doing.

Participants to the forum were particularly impressed by the CanePoint database developed by Philsurin under a project undertaken with other Asian sugar producers and funded by the CFC, Arceo said.

The database, the first in the world, contains genetic information that breeders can use to determine which sugarcane varieties are best to match to produce high-yield cane varieties (HYVs).

Another project Philsurin scientists are undertaking involves producing cane plantlets inoculated with nitrogen-fixing bacteria or, literally, cane with built-in fertilizer.

Dr. Lucille Villegas, who began this project while still a candidate at the University of the Philippines, earlier said if successful, the project would cut down fertilizer use by 30 to 40 percent.

This is aside from the variety improvement program it inherited from the Victorias Milling Co. that has produced most of the HYVs in use today, including VMC 86-550, the acknowledged "superstar" of the Philippine canes and the only local variety to match global yield standards. Philsurin's breeding station in Victorias City expects the PSR line next year.

All this be research institute created only a decade ago with a seed fund of P 2 million and which today is staffed by just 49 personnel operating a P 75-million annual budget funded by a P2 per bag levy on sugar production. In contrast, many sugar producers in the developing world, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand, have government research facilities staffed by hundreds of scientists and running on huge budgets.

Begun by industry players after sugar consumption outstripped production in 1995, by 2004, Philsurin's efforts led to a dramatic 43.62 percent increase in sugar production, from 1998's 1.63 million tons to 2.34 million metric tins, the highest yield ever in the country.

Ironically, this also led to overproduction that forced the country to unload surplus sugar on the world market at losing prices. Arceo said this led sugar producers to adjust by decreasing the hectarage planted to cane.

Currently, he said, the area planted to sugarcane has been cut from 389,000 hectares to 380,000.

But the increasing use of high-yield varieties and good sugarcane-growing weather is expected to yield another bumper crop of 2.5 million metric tons in the coming crop year. With improved world market prices brought about by a worldwide shortage, the shift to ethanol production by many sugar-growing countries and the cutting of agricultural subsidies by the European Union, Arceo said planters can expect to make a killing on their current crop.

In fact, Arceo said, with the current supply situation, the government may find no more need to import sugar as it plans to do in June.

So well has Philsurin done, said Arceo, that it is now "the de facto R&D arm of the sugar industry," especially with the Sugar Regulatory Administration embarking on a downsizing program.

Thus, although its mandate was supposed to end last year, Arceo said the sugar industry has agreed to let it to continue its work for another 10 years