From Yemen to Tunisia... The burning wheat prices threaten the Arab world
English - Sunday 27 February 2022 الساعة 09:09 am
NewsYemen, agencies:
At a time when conflict rages in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, Egyptians, Lebanese, Yemenis and citizens of other Arab countries may find it difficult to provide bread on the dining table, as Russia and Ukraine are their first wheat suppliers.
And the Middle East Research Institute warned that "if the war disrupts wheat supplies" to the Arab world, which depends heavily on imports to provide its food, "the crisis may lead to new demonstrations and instability in several countries."
"We thought we'd hit the bottom, but no, it's worse," says David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme. "We get half of our grain demand from Russia and Ukraine. This war will have a tragic impact."
The employee in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, Walid Salah, whose salary is regularly delayed, regrets that bread has become a luxury commodity for millions of Yemenis who suffer from hunger in a country devastated by war.
"Currently people can hardly provide basic food, and I think the Russian-Ukrainian war will cast a shadow over the Yemeni people and make matters worse," he told AFP.
It seems that Sudan, which has been suffering from a decline in its cash reserves since the suspension of international aid in response to the military coup in October, will be the first to be affected.
When the war broke out, Sudan's second-in-command was on a visit to Moscow to discuss trade exchanges with Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter.
The generals who control power in Sudan have not forgotten that one of them, former President Omar al-Bashir, fell in 2019 after protests sparked by a tripling in the price of bread.
According to the World Food Program, another war in Syria is starving 12.4 million Syrians.
While this country was self-sufficient in wheat until 2011, when the conflict broke out, it was forced, after years of war in which Russia helped the regime militarily, “to buy 1.5 million tons of wheat in 2021, mostly from Moscow,” according to For the specialized website "The Syria Report".
Damascus says it is now distributing the stocks to be used over a two-month period.
Crises
In neighboring Lebanon, where the collapse of the banking system impoverished 80 percent of the population and the explosion of the port of Beirut destroyed wheat silos, stocks are less.
The representative of wheat importers in Lebanon, Ahmed Hoteit, told AFP, "We currently have five ships at sea loaded with wheat, all from Ukraine... The current stock, in addition to the five ships, is sufficient for a month and a half."
He added, "Lebanon imports between 600,000 and 650,000 tons annually, eighty percent of which is from Ukraine," via ships that arrive in Lebanon within seven days.
As for "the alternative to Ukraine is the United States, but the difference is that the shipment takes 25 days from the United States ...Lebanon may enter into a crisis."
In the Maghreb, where wheat is essential for the manufacture of bread or couscous, the Moroccan government decided to increase the allocations for flour subsidies to 350 million euros, and suspended customs duties on wheat imports.
But Tunisia is not able to do that.
In December, ships refused to unload their cargo of wheat because they had not paid for it, according to the media in Tunisia, where debt is rising as foreign currency reserves melt.
Tunisia imports 60 percent of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia, and has enough stocks until June, Abdelhalim Kassemi of the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed.
In Algeria, the second consumer of wheat in Africa and the fifth importer of cereals in the world, stocks last for at least six months.
Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer and the second largest from Russia, and has bought 3.5 million tons of wheat as of mid-January, according to S&S Global.
Even after Cairo, in recent years, began buying wheat from other suppliers, especially from Romania, in 2021 , it imported 50 percent of its wheat from Russia and 30 percent from Ukraine.
The government confirmed that it has a "strategic stockpile that is sufficient for the state for a period of approximately nine months" to feed 103 million people, 70 percent of whom receive five subsidized loaves of bread.
But she added, "We will not be able to buy wheat at the price we were getting before the Russian-Ukrainian crisis," especially since wheat prices reached their highest level in Chicago in 14 years, reaching 344 euros per ton.
After reducing the weight of the subsidized loaf, the government is now considering increasing its price
In 1977, President Anwar Sadat did so, and immediately the "bread uprising" broke out, and did not stop until the old price returned.
