The cause: people do not have purchasing power to buy food. This is why producers prefer to fire sell the merchandise to minimize the percentage of loss.
By Correspondent lapatilla.com
Paul Márquez, President of Fegalago, told la patilla.com that meat, dairy and poultry producers work with perishable products and must move the merchandise.
Márquez explained that Venezuelans are not consuming protein, because there is no liquidity to buy.
Surviving calamities
On a tour of the main markets of Maracaibo and San Francisco, the price of an egg carton ranges from 2.75 to 3 dollars (80.75 bolivars).
The kilo of whole chicken is around 2 dollars, that of cheese 3 U.S. dollars, while meat (beef) averages 5 dollars without much recent change.
The worker at a butcher shop in the “Las Pulgas” market in Maracaibo said that what people are buying are 30 bolivars (about $1.00 or two pounds) of ground beef, chicken wings or “aserrín” (sawdust, unspecified cuttings, leftovers and bonemeal).
Others opt for the entrails: a kilo of beef liver is available for 100 bolivars (a little more than three dollars) while chicken hearts and livers are worth 60 bolivars per kilo.
“Many people here in the market are not buying meat, and the few that arrive buy a quarter or half a kilo (1 kilo = 2.2 pounds). Others buy ‘aserrín’ (unspecified cuttings ), ground bone to make it with rice. Sales are bad, bad. I don’t know where we are going to go in this country,” he said.
Luis León, a Maracaibo native, said that the “bone is super hard.” He said that they are surviving in his house. They had two blenders and he sold one. Of three televisions, he has none, because he sold them to buy food.
“It is painful and embarrassing to tell this. I come to Las Pulgas around four or five in the afternoon when the stalls are about to close and the vegetables are auctioned off, I buy the cheapest second quality stuff. Meat and chicken that I haven’t bought for months. Since the egg has become relatively cheap, I can buy it,” he stressed.
The truth is that the economic panorama turns dark for the country this second semester, according to statements by experts on the subject.
Zulians express being plunged into despair due to the lack of money to be able to feed themselves and cover the basic needs of their homes.