Chile: Government highlights fall in prices of potatoes and tomatoes, it foresees a 2024 with better food values

The Government, through the Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, highlighted the fall in potato and tomato prices. The authority also announced a “good first quarter of 2024” in terms of food prices. “Just as last year we put a lot of resources into wheat, as a result of the rise in the price of bread, and also into corn, due to the impact it had on the cost of egg production (…) This year INIA and INDAP focused on potato production and that is bearing fruit with the drop in price,” he said. Valenzuela maintained that this allows us to project “that during the entire first quarter of 2024 we will have the price of potatoes closer to $1,200, almost half of what it was.” The potato represents a high weight in the spending basket of Chilean households, acquiring special relevance (11-13% of spending on fruits and vegetables) among the lowest income quintiles. Therefore, variations in prices have effects on the well-being of the population. The figures provided by the Office ...