Wheat production focus shifts to local use

Ethiopia will not indulge in cross border wheat supply despite great successes registered in recent harvest seasons, Capital has learned.
Earlier in the beginning of the harvest season, the government had disclosed that it will commence export of wheat, with the sector experts signaling that it would take a considerable amount of time before the grain is shipped across the country’s borders.
The wheat production success in recent periods has been attributed to the use of off season harvest and cultivation of the grain in new areas that previously did not produce wheat.
Thus far, the government through the Ethiopian Trading Businesses Corporation (ETBC), a public enterprise that was importing wheat to stabilize the market, has sold the grain to the World Bank and World Food Programme.
Recently Legesse Tulu, Minister for Government Communication Service, disclosed that the World Bank bought 127,000 metric tons of wheat from Ethiopia while the UN agency bought 35,000 tons of wheat.
According to sector experts and exporters who are looking to start supply for their buyers, except the stated volume of the product, the government has not made available any additional grain.
Recently Eyob Tekalign, State Minister of Finance, said that the export was done via ETBC, which bought the product from farmers. This was done in close followed up by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and a team organized under the National Macro Economy Committee.
“It will not be continuing like this. The team and MoF followed the case diligently because it was a new scheme but in the future, the commodity shall be sold through the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) or directly from farmers to exporters,” he added.
ECX had announced that it is under preparation to commence wheat trade under its electronic floor.
The trading floor also expressed that it does not have any expectation of the product to be out for export in the coming months. According to the information that Capital obtained, the wheat that was sold to the two organizations was supplied for local aid only.
“As far as my knowledge, the product has not crossed the border,” opined one of the exporters that Capital spoke to with regards to the export of the new emerging agricultural commodity.
Different reports indicated that overall, Ethiopia boosted its total wheat production from 6.86 million tonnes in 2020/21 to 8.2 million tonnes in 2021/2022. Effort is also said to be well underway to produce over 52 million quintals of wheat with irrigation by July, 2023.
As a result, Ethiopia has not imported commercial wheat as from last year. The country previously had allocated up to USD one billion for wheat import, while the effort taken in the past three years has reduced the import volume.