Egypt has less than two months’ supply of imported wheat left in its stocks, ousted President Mohamed Morsi’s minister of supplies said, revealing a shortage more acute than previously disclosed.

Speaking to Reuters on July 11 in a tent at a vigil where thousands of Morsi supporters are protesting against the Islamist president’s removal, former Minister of Supplies Bassem Ouda said the state had just 500,000 metric tons of imported wheat left. Egypt usually imports about 10 million tons a year.

Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat, half of which it distributes to its 84 million people in the form of heavily subsidized saucer-sized flat loaves of bread, which sell for less than 1 U.S. cent.

A farmer holds out grains of wheat in his hands during a harvest on a field in the El-Menoufia governorate, about 9.94 km (58 miles) north of Cairo April 23, 2013. Egypt’s wheat crop will be close to 10 million tonnes this season, agriculture minister Salah Abdel Momen said on Sunday as the harvest gets underway, more than the supply minister’s 9.5 million tonne forecast. Picture taken April 23, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamed

Bread has long been a sensitive issue in Egypt. Former President Hosni Mubarak faced unrest in 2008, when the rising price of wheat caused shortages.

Although it also grows its own wheat, Egypt needs huge quantities of foreign wheat with higher gluten content to make flour suitable for bread.

The ousted government closely guarded figures about its foreign grain stores, even as a shortage of cash halted its imports.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in July that civil unrest and dwindling foreign exchange reserves meant Egypt could have serious food security concerns. Its import requirements next year would be equal to this year, it said.

Apart from imports, Ouda said the government had bought 3.7 million tons of home-grown wheat from a harvest that is now finishing. It still has 3 million tons of domestic wheat left in its stores, having begun milling the domestic crop in May.

Egypt normally mixes its domestic wheat with equal parts foreign wheat to produce flour. Ouda said Morsi’s government had tried to increase the ratio of domestic wheat, which would make the country less dependent on imports.

“Our plan was to increase the contribution of the local wheat. We hoped to reach 60 percent,” Ouda said.

Morsi’s government said on June 26 it had 3.613 million tons of total wheat, but did not reveal how much of that was imported.

Mamdouh Abdel Fattah, vice chairman of GASC, was quoted on July 11 by state media as saying Egypt’s total wheat stocks were enough to last until November. However, he too did not say how much of that was imported.

Earlier this week a report, issued by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) attache in Egypt, said domestic wheat stocks would last through October at current consumption levels. It gave no estimate for when foreign wheat would run out.

In the past, Egypt maintained stocks of both imported and local wheat that would cover at least six months’ needs.  

— Reuters