The head of Development of the Metropolitan Agri-Food Unit announced which are the fruits and vegetables that will normalize their prices.
After an overwhelming drought, the values and quality of vegetables and fruits were affected, however, since the Metropolitan Agri-Food Unit (UAM) They anticipated that the values will be normalized, although there will be exceptions.
Paul PachecoHead of Development at UAM, in an interview with Telemundo, anticipated that, over the next few months, the values of many agricultural products will stabilize.
Pacheco explained that UAM works with supply and demand and that the weather conditions did not help a good production. “We have a scenario with the consequence of the unprecedented drought of the last forty years, which had a negative impact on production,” he said, adding that this immediately impacts prices upwards.
“In the month of March we had a fruit-horticultural kilo-basket value that was close to $60. What we observed for the last two years, 2021 and 2022, were values of $35 per kilogram. It is an increase of practically 80-90% ”, he explained. To this is added that in the years 2021 and 2022 the fruit and vegetable basket had prices below the historical averagewhich makes the comparison even greater, although it does not rule out that these prices are the highest since 2014.
The worst of the drought is over
The head of development of the UAM wanted to bring peace of mind to consumers by establishing that the worst is over and the only thing left is the improve quality and supply and therefore lower prices. “Surely March and April are the months with the worst situation, the most expensive in terms of fruit and vegetable prices. And from April onwards we start to see reductions”, he explained.
The products that will quickly stabilize their prices are the citric fruitsdue to the fact that the supply has been increasing, and the leafy vegetables since, by having a short production cycle, the supply recovers much faster. The same will happen with the tomatoes, zucchini and aubergineswhich is expected to stabilize for the month of May.
The fruits and vegetables that will not suffer the same fate are those with a long cycle and that will take longer to recover the supply, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, pears and apples, the latter two being the most mistreated crops and a new harvest is expected for next summer.
Source: Ambito
