In 2023, the Azores reached the highest value for the shipment of agricultural goods, with a total of 458.18 million euros. The data comes from the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and Food.
The value recorded was just 33.91 million euros in 2014, but today, it is more than 13 times higher.
This figure first made a big leap in 2016, when it rose to 288.8 million euros, and has been growing gradually ever since.
Compared to 2022, when there was a shipment of agricultural goods of 409.16 million euros, there was an increase of around 12% in 2023.
According to the Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Food, António Ventura, this increase is “justified by the appreciation of products” from the Azores.
“The price of meat hasn’t gone down and the price of cheese and butter has even increased in some cases. And inflation has contributed to this. We have the highest financial value in the last 10 years,” he said, speaking to DI.
Of the 458.18 million euros recorded in 2023, the majority (396.48 million) relate to dairy products, 51.72 million to meat shipments, and the remaining 10 million to other products.

António Ventura stressed that these figures do not reflect an increase in production but rather a greater appreciation of products.
“Milk production has been falling. It has fallen by 50 million liters in the last two years. We have a policy that discourages milk production on three islands: São Miguel, Terceira and Graciosa. It’s about valuing it,” he explained.
The holder of the Agriculture portfolio gave the case of São Jorge, where the price of a liter of milk paid to producers has increased and is now “the best paid” in the region.
“It’s an example of what the Azorean path should be in terms of valuing the product,” he stressed.
“It’s incomprehensible how large multinationals can’t pay the price that São Jorge cooperatives are paying,” he added.
There is no data to calculate the weight of the agricultural sector in the region’s shipments in the last three years, but in 2020, with 322.18 million euros, the shipment of agricultural goods in the region represented 34% of the Azores’ commercial shipments and 52% of the region’s shipments of goods.
In the Azores, 60% of the land area is occupied by agricultural activity and 31% by forests.
Agriculture in the region accounts for 11,313 full-time jobs, approximately 9% of the total employed population.
In 2022, agriculture’s gross value added (GVA) represented 5.7% of the total regional gross value added, while at the national level, it represented only 1.5%.
When adding the GVA from the processing and trade of factors of production not accounted for in intermediate consumption, the agricultural sector’s contribution to regional GVA is 7.7%.

in Diário Insular-José Lourenço, director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks FLAD (Luso-American Development Foundation) for sponsoring PBBI-Fresno State, including NOVIDADES.