Chairing the fourth ministerial meeting for the committee that was tasked to follow up the repercussions of the global crisis on the Egyptian strategic commodities, Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli revised the state’s stockpiles of certain basic food commodities, saying that the wheat stock is enough for 2.6 month as this coincides with the start of the wheat harvest season from the local farmers.
The Prime Minister announced that the government has allocated EGP 1.1 billion to the Supply Commodities Authority and the Agricultural Bank of Egypt for purchasing the local wheat from the farmers.
During the meeting, Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali Meselhi confirmed that the supply of local wheat goes smoothly, noting that there are more than 450 locations to supply wheat nationwide.
Director General of the National Service Projects Organization (NSPO) Major General Mostafa Amin said that supply of wheat that was planted in Toshka and East Owainat could reach about 500,000 tons.
As for other basic commodities, the Prime Minister noted that sugar stocks are sufficient for 5.6 months, while the stocks of both oil and rice are sufficient for 5.9 months each. The meeting also tackled the government’s efforts in controlling the food prices which went nuts recently due to the ongoing Ukraine-Russian conflict’s impact on the global economy.
Egypt’s wheat imports are projected to go down due to the Ukraine-Russian, said the US Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture on March 28, 2022.
“FAS Cairo forecasts Egypt’s wheat imports in MY 2022/23 (July – June) at 11 MMT, down by 8.3 percent from MY 2021/22 Post’s import estimate figure of 12 MMT. Importing and buying wheat from other markets remains a viable option for government and private purchases,” the FAS said in its report.
Egypt is currently suffering from a potential crisis of wheat supply due to the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict as the two countries are the biggest wheat importer to Egypt. So, the government is targeting to increase the area of the wheat crops by 1.5 million feddans over the next three years in accordance with a new study conducted by the Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC).
Egypt needs about 18 million tons of wheat annually, with local productivity of 10 million tons of wheat. So, it has been gravely affected by the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict as it gets 80 percent of exported wheat from both conflicting countries.
Obstacles to wheat cultivation in Egypt boil down to the problem of pests, the lack of fertilizers, the increase in the land salinity, and climate change impacts, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture told Sout Al-Omma newspaper on Monday. The government is working to remove these obstacles with multiple, the official added.
Egypt seeks to collect up to 6 million tons of local wheat from farmers this season, which starts in April, Minister of Supply Ali Moselhi said on Monday in the third meeting for the national committee to face the Ukraine crisis’s impact on strategic goods.
Despite the government’s efforts to secure wheat supply that is essential for the subsidized bread, one of the 2011 Revolution’s slogans, the government would not stop importing wheat from other countries like France even with high price to fill the gap between the local production and the consumption, head of the farmers’ syndicate Hussein Abdel Rahman Abu Saddam told Egypt Today on Sunday.
Source: State Information Service Egypt