Morocco is the third consumer of wheat in North Africa behind Egypt and Algeria. In the country, dependence on rainfed wheat leads, in drought years, to great instability in production and in fact to greater use of imports.
In Morocco, wheat purchases on the international market could be between 4.5 and 5 million tonnes during next year. This was told by Yann Lebeau, head of the Maghreb-Africa mission at Intercéreales, the inter-professional organization representing the cereals sector in France.
The anticipated level would be higher than the average of 3 million tonnes recorded over the last decade and is explained by the severe drought that hit the country this year. This meteorological episode, the third most important after those of 2019 and 2020, caused cereal production to plunge by nearly 67% to 3.4 million tonnes. Soft wheat supply reached 1.89 million tonnes, down more than 65% year-on-year.
For French exporters, the expected jump in imports offers the opportunity to consolidate a little more the presence on this destination which has suspended customs duties on the basic product since last January, a measure still in force.
Already, the tricolor nation aims to ship a total of 2.5 million tonnes of soft wheat to the Cherifian Kingdom this year, which would represent nearly 40% of total Moroccan wheat purchases. In the North African country, the soft wheat import bill reached $1.6 billion over the first 7 months of the year according to official data.
As a reminder, in Morocco, common wheat accounts for 70% of wheat consumption in urban areas and 66% of human use in rural areas.
