Midagri: Potato prices are rising due to speculation, not shortages

Although the supply dad at the Great Wholesale Market of Lima (GMML) exceeds the average, the price of the tuber in the local market continues to fluctuate, what happened?

This Thursday, GMML received a 20.7% increase, and the day before, the load also exceeded the average of the last four weeks by almost 42.4%, this reflects an increase catering product, said Cesar Santisteban Perez, Director General of the Department of Statistics, Monitoring and Policy Evaluation of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (midagri).

“Potatoes were an indication that we had an above average income of 42 and 20% for the wholesale market and therefore for retail markets; however, we were able to see how the price is realized prohibitively, reaching even supermarkets at 11 soles,” the official said.

For a specialist, this unreasonable increase is due only to speculative reasons, so it is important that the population is informed about the food supply. He recalled that the price of the farm also did not change; that is, the amount collected from the first level of the production chain.

“Which hasn’t kept the correlation, which is basically there are speculative increases, because unless you have a huge amount of potatoes that come in twice as much as usual, there is no reason to increase it from markets, supermarkets or wine cellars. . So, unfortunately, sometimes the lack of general information is, let’s say, an artificial overstatement,” he said.

How is the food situation?

On the Economy for All programme, the official also explained the food security situation on the third day of the resumption of protests to advance the elections.

Cesar Santisteban assured that although there was a drop in income today foodin previous days, GMML exceeded the expected amount.

“Usually on Wednesday, an average of 1,800 tons arrive, this time 2,600 arrived, on Thursday 2,400 arrived and 3,000 tons arrived. Today there was a decrease, but the balance of the week is such that it is 1% more than last week, what to say that supplies were practically not affected,” he said.