Many of the main agricultural producers in Portugal are in the western region, which is one of the most affected by the storms. The impact on production and infrastructure failures should increase prices.
The price of the food basket reached, last week, the highest value in the last four yearsaccording to data released by Deco Proteste, which regularly monitors the evolution of prices for a set of 63 essential goods. The consumer protection association also warns of the possibility of new increases in the coming weeks due to the storms that have affected several regions of the country.
In an interview with , Deco Proteste spokesperson, Nuno Pais Figueiredo, explained that only one of the products whose price rose most significantly can be directly associated with the recent impact of bad weather. This is the flowswhich registered an increase of 84 cents in a single week, with a greater incidence in the last few days.
“It is one of the products that comes from the western region of our country, which are the main producers and distributors, and we can eventually associate this exponential increase in zucchini with this fact”, he says.
Still, most of the products that saw sharper increases do not have a direct link to adverse weather conditions, although the outlook is not optimistic.
The association anticipates that other products, mainly vegetables and fruits produced on a large scale in the West region, may follow the same trend. Many producers will have lost a significant part of their production due to the damage caused by the storms, while others face logistical difficulties due to the lack of electricity or restricted access to farms and closed roads.
These limitations may trigger a knock-on effect on prices. With less supply available and demand that remains, values tend to rise. Added to this are increased transport costs: longer or alternative routes imply greater fuel consumption, making the final product more expensive for the consumer.
Since it began monitoring the essential basket, in 2022, Deco Proteste has recorded irregular increases, described as occurring “in jerks”. However, according to Nuno Pais Figueiredo, since the beginning of this year the trend has become continuous. “It’s always increasing”.
