Morocco plans to import around 10 million tonnes of wheat this year to compensate for the drop in national production which will not exceed 2.5 million tonnes during this agricultural campaign.
The president of the Moroccan Federation of Flour Mills, Abdelkader Alaoui, explained in a statement to the « Efe » press agency, that the quantity of imported cereals, durum wheat, soft wheat, corn and barley, will be « exceptional » this year because of the drop in the national production which records its lowest level since 1981. « Depending on cereal production, the government could import a greater quantity of cereals which would exceed by 12% what it was during the previous campaign. According to the official, the successive droughts experienced by Morocco have severely impacted cereal production. Thus, the quantity of cereals imported increased from 7.8 million tonnes during the 2021/2022 season to 8.8 million tonnes in 2022/2023.
As a reminder, in 2023, Morocco purchased 4,758,263 tonnes of soft wheat on the international market, compared to 5,275,917 tonnes in 2022. France (more than 2.3 million tonnes), Germany (1,160,619 tonnes) and Romania (357,837 tonnes) were respectively its three main suppliers, Abdellatif Jouahri, also indicated that Morocco is recording a significant fall in the harvest due to the drop in rainfall and generally unfavorable climatic conditions. These conditions would have affected the area planted with cereals which would have been around 2.5 million hectares compared to nearly 3.7 million a year earlier.
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