Morocco’s official grains agency, the National Interprofessional Office for Cereals and Pulses (ONICL), announced that it will subsidize the purchase of 2 million metric tons of soft wheat from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 to make up for diminished domestic wheat production due to Morocco’s second year of severe drought.
Morocco’s finance and agriculture ministries have approved the October-December import program, with subsidy details to be posted on ONICL’s website.
Morocco launched an import program for the 2023/24 season, from July to September, with a target of 2.5 million tons due to a string of poor domestic crop yields caused by drought.
ONICL’s decision to extend the import program is based upon Morocco’s milling sector estimates indicating that the country’s import requirements for the season may as much as 5 million tons. It’s probably driven also by a shortfall in July-September shipments compared to the initial target of 2.5 million tons, according to a European trader.
The European Union has been Morocco’s biggest supplier this season, exporting 1.2 million tons of soft wheat by mid-September.
So far this year, Moroccan millers have received around 100,000 tons of Russian wheat, according to Reuters, signaling a potential increase in reliance on Russian wheat as a result of adjustments to Morocco’s import strategy favoring Black Sea sources.