As the Russia-Ukraine war escalates, Egypt has succeeded in purchasing 3.5 million tonnes of wheat from local farmers since the beginning of this fiscal year starting June, reports Al-monitor.
Ali Moselhi, Egyptian Minister of Supply and Internal Trade said that during the season the government has purchased 3.5 million tonnes of wheat from local farmers taking the strategic reserves of the commodity for about 6.3 months.
The global wheat supply was affected due to the Russian-Ukrainian war that began in February. Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer was affected due to this as it was importing the commodity from Russia and Ukraine. Taking note of this the President of the country, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had asked the authorities in April to increase local production of wheat which has yielded good results now.
As per the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) statement, since July, the government has purchased 465,000 tons of wheat including 175,000 tons from Russia, 240,000 tons from Romania and 50,000 tons from Bulgaria.
Moselhi said that the government has focused on increasing local wheat production and the farmers were excluded from a night curfew imposed to keep a check on the spread of coronavirus to help them to work in fields without any interruptions.
