Portugal’s period of extreme heat, beyond the horror of constant wildfires, is causing prices to rise for staples like fruit and vegetables – and strangely for tinned tuna.
Data collected by INE (statistics institute) and consumer entity DECO Proteste shows that prices for fruit and veg started rising in June (by 4.7%), and then in July (by 6.1%).
Compared with prices being charged this time last year, fruit has increased by 10%, and some vegetables by as much as 18% (cherry tomatoes).
Distributors APED point to extreme heat being behind this inflation, saying the “increase in temperatures provoked a reduction in the productivity of plants”.
But no-one has a reason for what has happened to tinned tuna – another staple in most Portuguese homes: it has been showing ‘expressive’ price increases during the year, with prices leaping another 10% just between July 30 and August 6, yet ANICP (the national association of fish canning industries) says the raw materials that go into it (oil/ tuna) have remained stable. In other words ‘there is no evident justification for the increases in prices on shop shelves’ (unless there is an across-the-board agreement to inflate prices for the summer…)
Talking to Público, APED’s director general Gonçalo Lobo Xavier, stresses that ‘extreme climate phenomena” have seen the production of fruit and vegetables compromised at a European level for the last few years. He believes it is “crucial to invest in the availability of water and internal production, as a way to reduce dependency on imports and guarantee more accessible prices”.
With regard to water, which fell in such abundance last winter, streams and rivers have already run dry. In Arganil, where water-bombing planes are attacking flames relentlessly bearing down on communities, SIC television reported this afternoon that they are no longer able to use nearby natural water sources, and have started filling their tanks from ‘private swimming pools’.
Source material: ZAP (Público) / SIC
