BEIRUT: Syria’s cabinet upped the local purchasing price for wheat for the 2021 season to 900 Syrian pounds a kilogram from around 425 pounds in the past season, Syria’s state news agency said on Tuesday.

The Syrian pound, which held steady at around 500 to the dollar for several years, went into free fall in 2019 and hit a low of 4,000 to the dollar earlier this month.

The government has historically lured farmers to sell it their wheat by paying a high price. Syria’s economy is collapsing under the weight of a complex, multi-sided 10-year conflict, as well as a financial crisis in neighbouring Lebanon.

Fewer dollars for wheat imports has translated across Syria into long waiting lines for subsidised bread, sometimes up to five hours.

Before the conflict, Syria used to produce 4 million tonnes of wheat in a good year and was able to export 1.5 million tonnes. Last year it produced between 2.1 million and 2.4 million tonnes of wheat, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates.

Demand across the country is about 4 million tonnes, leaving a shortfall to fill through imports.