Eight in every ten bites arrive by ship

Between 85% and 90% of what is eaten in Puerto Rico arrived on a ship. Local production covers around 15%, and that share has spent decades not moving much in the right direction.

The number alone does not say whether that is good or bad. Plenty of wealthy places import nearly all their food and nothing happens. What makes it different here is that almost all of it comes through the same door: an interruption at the dock does not make the shop more expensive, it empties it. That is the difference between depending on a market and depending on a route.

One part is moving. The value of farm output reached 703 million in 2022, 45% more than in 2018. It is real growth on a small base, and the barrier the farmers themselves point to is not price or land, but that there is nobody coming up behind the people who are retiring.