In contrast, according to the “Agricultural Statistics 2024” from the National Statistics Institute (INE), the grape harvest was adversely impacted by “strong pressure from diseases and adverse weather phenomena,” registering an 8.1% decrease in production.
The statistical institute noted that last year’s second-largest olive oil production in the recorded series mirrored “the maturity of the intensive Alentejo olive groves.”
Meanwhile, almond production was “boosted by new orchards in Alentejo,” reaching the highest value in the series and positioning Portugal as the second-largest producer in the European Union (EU), following Spain.
In the forestry sector, the number of rural fires (6,293, a 16.8% decrease from 2023) was the lowest in the past 20 years.
Conversely, the burned area (137,700 hectares on the mainland and 5,200 hectares in the Autonomous Region of Madeira) ranked 2024 as “the third most severe year of the last decade” (2015-2024).
In mainland Portugal in 2024, the hunting area extended over 6.995 million hectares across 5,351 hunting zones, 52 more areas covering an additional 27,200 hectares than in 2023.
The 108,196 hunting licenses issued in the 2024/2025 hunting season (108,265 in 2023/2024) represented a decrease of 0.1%, generating a revenue of six million euros, a 4.1% increase compared to 2023/2024.
[News updated at 13:15]
