Document shows that Egypt purchases 466,266 tonnes of wheat from local farmers

An official document published on Monday showed that Egypt, the world's largest wheat importer, had purchased 466,266 tons of wheat directly from local farmers, since the official procurement season began in mid-April.

This is a drop of over 37% compared to the same period last year.

The government, despite a decline in the wheat-cultivated area this season, believes that it can purchase 4 to 5 millions tons of wheat directly from local farmers. It has raised the price for the procurement by 10%. This leaves it with about 6 million tonnes to import to supply heavily subsidised bread to more than 69,000,000 Egyptians.

The government buys 3.5 million tonnes of local produce from farmers.

Wheat has been reported to be less profitable as compared to crops such as beet. The area of this crop increased from 500,000 feddans up 700,000.