SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Feb. 21 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Government of the Canary Islands presented this Monday the Observatory of Agricultural Prices, an initiative launched with the aim of guaranteeing transparency and up-to-date information for all the agents involved in the supply chain, from producers to consumers.
During the press conference, the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Government of the Canary Islands, Alicia Vanoostende, together with the head of the Statistics Service, Yenis González, explained that the launch of the Observatory arises from the need to continue advancing towards compliance with the Food Chain Law.
The aim of this tool is to have up-to-date information on the average prices of agricultural products, with databases that allow inter-annual and inter-monthly comparisons to be made.
“Monthly and continuous monitoring of prices, with the utmost rigor and transparency, will allow correct decisions to be made to maintain the balance between the price that consumers assume and the remuneration that producers obtain”, commented the minister.
Likewise, he said that “it comes to organize all the available information and improve access to data, favoring the creation of the Agricultural Price Statistics”.
He also added that the Observatory of Agricultural Prices “will contribute to guaranteeing the improvement of food sovereignty in the archipelago and will serve to define the agricultural policies of the islands.”
Vanoostende also valued the field work carried out by Management of the Rural Environment of the Canary Islands (GMR), in charge of carrying out surveys at the foot of the store to calculate these average prices.
Through the Observatory a statistical operation is carried out, called ‘Survey on the Collection of Destination Prices and Consumer Prices’.
It studies the evolution of prices and commercial margins of agricultural products of Canarian origin and includes all the phases, from production and first commercialization, until a consumer acquires it in a commercial establishment.
The methodology for preparing the survey has been designed by the Statistical Service of the Government of the Canary Islands, selecting a representative sample of the archipelago in which the municipalities in each of the islands with the greatest representativeness from a statistical point of view have been chosen.
The survey also collects marketing prices in supermarket chains, supermarkets, small businesses, markets and greengrocers.
In total, 200 commercial surfaces have been studied. The data has been obtained through a questionnaire that collects 32 Canarian agricultural products and their respective varieties.
In addition, work is being done to include livestock products such as goat, sheep and bovine milk.
MORE THAN 30 PRODUCTS SURVEYED
The Observatory materializes through a section on the Ministry’s website, from which you can consult agricultural price statistics and the main products grown in the Canary Islands since September 2020 appear in it.
Some of the 32 products surveyed are potatoes, watercress, pumpkin, strawberries, tomatoes, bananas, tropical pineapple and avocado.
Yenis González recalled that these are products grown in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands and, therefore, imported products are not included.
This website offers data on the evolution of average prices by products and islands and prices are indicated at origin, in wholesale establishments and for sale to the public and products can also be compared.
In this way, the Ministry intends to make available to producers and consumers how prices have evolved in recent months, providing greater transparency to the market.
