1.2 M tons of wheat supplied to Egypt’s government from local farmers so far: Report

CAIRO – 6 May 2023: The Egyptian government has purchased 1.2 million ton of wheat from local farmer in this season since mid-April 2023, according to a report filed to Minister of Supply Ali Al Meselhi on Saturday.

The purchased amount of wheat was sent to 420 places nationwide, the report said, noting that the wheat quality of this season is superior, besides the increase in the rates of supply this year compared to last year at the same time, the report said, indicated that the payment takes place 48 hours after the supply.

Hussein Abdul Rahman Abu Saddam, Head of the General Syndicate of Farmers, said in a statement that the authorities aim to purchase a total of 4 tons of wheat from the local farmers.

He added that the supply of wheat will continued until the end of next September, and about 50% of the cultivated areas have been harvested so far, while about 25% of the harvested quantities have been threshed.

Abdul Rahman added that the high rate of supply is attributed to several reasons, the most important of which are the increase of the price, the high number of wheat receiving points (430 nationwide), and the ban on sealing wheat to another places without an approval from the Ministry of Supply.

He continued that the government also warned against using wheat as fish fodder at fishing farms.

In April 2023, the Egyptian Ministry of Finance allocated 45 billion EGP to purchase local wheat from farmers this year, with an increase of more than 19 billion EGP compared to the last year, said Minister Mohamed Maait in a statement.

The government has started to buy the local wheat from the beginning of this April to the mid-August, with an additional cost to increase the price of one ardab (150 kilograms) by 74% from 865 EGP to 1,500 EGP, Maait added.

The increase in the wheat purchase price comes with the implementation of the presidential directives to support farmers and encourage them to expand the cultivation of strategic crops like wheat, in a way that contributes to achieving self-sufficiency.

Egypt has been suffering from a crisis of wheat supply from conflicting Russia and Ukraine, the two biggest wheat importers to Egypt. So, the government is targeting to increase the area of the wheat crops by 1.5 million feddans over the few coming years in accordance with a new study conducted by the Egyptian Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC).