Madrid (EFE) prices and that the effect of the drought will stop this expected fall.
The General Secretary for Agriculture and Food, Fernando Miranda, and the General Director of the FIAB, Mauricio García de Quevedo, participated this Tuesday in the presentation of the economic report for this sector which, due to inflation, has grown by only 1 .5% this year.
Miranda explained that although the FAO price index has been declining for thirteen months, the complexity of the food chain leads to a gap between these reductions and their transfer to prices, which in Spain are almost 16% more expensive than a year ago. anus.
“There is not a day that we can say from now on that prices will drop,” he explained, while defending that they should go down, although he has warned of new uncertainties, especially the drought or the ban on imports of Ukrainian cereals.
inflationary trend
In March and April the country is below last year’s rainfall, which was already scarce, he said, and to the extent that the absence of rainfall leads to “a scarce supply” it would add to the inflationary trend.
The General Secretary for Agriculture has assessed the measures that the Government has already taken -such as the drop in VAT- and has highlighted that prices in Spain have risen less than in 16 European countries.
For his part, De Quevedo has highlighted the “complex context” of 2022, due to the war in Ukraine, the transport strike and the increase in costs that followed the end of the pandemic and to which the drought has been added, a set of factors that “has extremely stressed the entire chain.”
“Behind a food and beverage product there are fertilizers, water, storage, transportation,” among other inputs, he pointed out, which have led to inflation that “nobody wants, but that is necessary for the survival” of the companies.
He has pointed out that many of them have absorbed the margins and, even so, the sector “continues to be resilient and creating employment”.
In his opinion, it will be the level of competitiveness of the sector that will make the drop in certain production costs begin to be incorporated into prices, something that is delayed because “the stock that has been purchased at certain prices must be disposed of” .
“The deadlines will depend on each company,” he concluded.
In addition, it has called for a regulatory and fiscal scope to protect a strategic sector for Spain and Europe from the economic vulnerability to which this situation is precipitating.
In this line, it has considered “urgent” the resolution of the calls for the agri-food Perte to allow these small and medium-sized companies to be provided with the necessary resources to adopt investments in innovation and thus improve their competitiveness.