Morocco offers millers incentives to use domestic soft wheat

RABAT: Morocco announced a set of measures on Friday to promote the use of domestic wheat by local millers instead of imports.

These included a flat rate subsidy of 5 dirhams ($0.51) per 100 kg of soft wheat to millers using local output, the ministry of agriculture said in a statement.

Benefits also included a premium of 2 dirhams per 100 kg per 15 days for storage agencies from June 1 to Dec. 31, it said.

The government set a reference price for standard quality soft wheat at 280 dirhams per 100 kg, it added.

The measures enter into force for locally harvested wheat between June 1 and Aug. 31.

The government said last week it will increase the import duty on soft wheat to 135% from 30% on June 1 to help local farmers sell the domestic harvest and reduce imports.

By mid-April, Morocco's soft wheat reserves were estimated at 1.77 million tonnes, covering 4-1/2 months of the needs of local industrial mills, according to official figures.

Morocco's cereals production is expected to total 6.1 million tonnes in 2019, down 40.7 percent from last year due to a lack of rainfall, according to the agriculture ministry.

This year's harvest includes 3.5 million tonnes of soft wheat, 1.35 million tonnes of durum wheat and 1.25 million tonnes of barley, the ministry said in its forecast.

Last year, Morocco imported 2.6 million tonnes of soft wheat, 0.9 million of durum wheat and 0.41 million of barley, statistics from the state-run grains agency ONICLE showed.