Implications of Recent Events on Portuguese Fruit Production Markets

The fresh fruit markets have several particularities because of the perishability of these agricultural products, which brings additional pressure on the farmers, namely the smaller ones, to sell quickly after harvesting. These contexts have implications on the dynamics of the markets and in the definition of the prices. The question here is if the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent conflicts had consequences on these dynamics. The evolution of the fresh fruit producer prices in the Portuguese regions and markets was assessed. A special focus was given to the apple markets, considering their importance for the diet of the Portuguese population. For that, data from the SIMA (Sistema de Informação de Mercados Agrícolas) were considered for the weeks from 2017 to 2022. The implications from the most recent occurrences—if, in fact, had relevance—seem to have been slight