Several farmers in Vale da Vilariça, in the municipality of Vila Flor, were left without agricultural diesel to work with for a few days, as it had run out at all gas stations in the region, and is just being refilled now.
Pedro Morgado owns a gas station in Santa Comba da Vilariça, municipality of Vila Flor, and told Lusa that, on the 7th, the agricultural diesel ran out.
According to the businessman and also a farmer, he receives 18 thousand liters of agricultural diesel every week, an amount he sold in just one day, drying the hose for the remaining days.
“As there were many stations where there was no agricultural diesel, many people had to stop,” he stated.
The “chaotic” rush to the pumps, due to the , depleted this fuel, leaving, mainly, the small farmers of this region no source of work or to look for other alternatives.
To Lusa, Pedro Morgado explained that farmers had I was afraid that there would be a lack of fuel and, therefore, they created reserves at homeso that they would not stop working. However, not everyone was as lucky.
Who doesn’t have a dog…
Wilson Alves was one of the affected farmers. He has six hectares of citrus fruits, peach trees and vegetables and during the last week he was forced to put road diesel in tractors to be able to work.
“We had to put diesel fuel on the road because there was no agriculture to work with. A more expensive solution (…) Otherwise we wouldn’t work, we would stand still and now is the time of greatest workspring is coming and it is necessary to take care of the spring/summer crops, sulfate the orchards, peach trees”, he told Lusa.
Agricultural diesel currently costs more than 1.4 euros in the district of Bragança and at some gas stations it costs more than 1.5 euros. “These are values that are outside the real and that then do not follow the economy when faced with the sale of products”, criticized the farmer.
According to Wilson Alves, this is the highest price in memoryhighlighting that, to be able to “work well”, the value of agricultural diesel should be around 0.8 euros.
In a region where people live from agriculture, according to Pedro Morgado, around “40% of diesel consumption is agricultural diesel”, “a very high consumption” of this type of fuel, which highlights the importance of the sector.
The US and Israeli attack on Iran at the end of February had an immediate impact on fuel prices. THE Strait of Hormuza strategic waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil passes daily, was closed by Iran in response to US attacks.
