CAP warns food inflation will continue

The price of agricultural produce in Portugal will continue to rise even if inflation stops according to the Confederation of Portuguese Farmers (CAP).

The confederation’s president Eduardo Oliveira e Sousa says: “Only by some miracle” will prices return back to what they had been a year ago because of the difference between the “increase of production costs and the sales value of a given product”.
In an interview with Jornal de Negócios and Antena 1, the spokesperson for the confederation which represents farming companies said that many businesses linked to fish farming had already closed and other “bankruptcies were sure to follow because of high electricity bills” when accounts are closed at the end of the year and weighed up against electricity consumption and sales.
The confederation has already asked the Minister of the Environment, João Pedro Matos Fernandes for farmers to have access to the regulated electricity market just as domestic customers have, and noted that current rates are “incompatible with most crop irrigation”.
Portugal’s Secretary of State for Energy João Galamba said on Sunday that the agriculture sector has a €90 million “life line” which will be distributed over the next two years.
“Between zero VAT, the fall in electricity prices and a number of significant aid packages, these amount to €90 million which is being made available over two years”, he told Lusa.