CAIRO —
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could mean less bread
on the table in Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world where
millions already struggle to survive.
اضافة اعلان
The region is heavily dependent on wheat supplies
from the two countries which are now at war, and any shortages of the staple
food have the potential to bring unrest.
If those supplies are disrupted, “the
Ukraine crisis
could trigger renewed protests and instability” in several Middle East and
North Africa countries, the Washington-based Middle East Institute said.
The generals now ruling in Khartoum after an October
coup have not forgotten: in 2019, one of their own, Field Marshall
Omar Al-Bashir, Sudan’s longtime autocrat, was toppled by his military under
pressure from mass demonstrations triggered by a tripling of the bread price.
Sudan is already facing regular anti-coup protests
but seems to have taken the initiative to avoid demonstrations over bread.
When Russia’s invasion began on Thursday, the
second-highest figure in
Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council was in Moscow to
discuss trade ties.
Bread is already a luxury for millions in Yemen,
where a seven-year war has pushed the country to the brink of famine.
“Most people can barely afford the basic foods,” and
the war in
Ukraine will only “make things worse”, Walid Salah, 35, a civil
servant in the rebel-held capital Sanaa, told AFP.
Russia is the world’s top wheat exporter and Ukraine
the fourth, according to estimates by the
US Department of Agriculture.
Moscow’s invasion
pushed the wheat price far above its previous record high in European trading
to 344 euros ($384) a ton on Thursday.
David Beasley, the
World Food Program’s executive
director, said the Ukraine-Russia area provides half the agency’s grains. The
war, he said, “is going to have a dramatic impact”.
‘Supplies will not last’
WFP says 12.4 million people in conflict-ravaged Syria are also
struggling with food insecurity.
Before its civil
war began in 2011, Syria produced enough wheat to feed its population but
harvests then plunged and led to increased reliance on imports.
The Damascus
regime is a staunch ally of
Moscow which backed it militarily during the war.
“Syria imported
some 1.5 million tons of wheat last year, largely from Russia,” The
Syria Report, an economic publication, said this month.
Damascus says it
is now working to distribute the stocks to use them over two months.
Supplies in
neighboring
Lebanon will not last that long. The country is gripped by a
financial crisis which has left more than 80 percent of the population in
poverty, and a 2020 port explosion damaged large parts of Beirut including
silos containing 45,000 tons of grain.
Lebanon’s
current stock, in addition to five ships from Ukraine waiting to be offloaded,
“can only last for one month and a half”, said Ahmad Hoteit, the representative
of Lebanon’s wheat importers.
Ukraine was the
source of 80 percent of the 600,000 to 650,000 tons of wheat imported annually
by Lebanon, which has only been able to store about a month’s worth of wheat
since the port blast, he told AFP.
The
United States can be an alternate supplier but shipments could take up to 25 days
instead of seven, Hoteit said.
In the Maghreb,
where wheat is the basis for couscous as well as bread, Morocco’s minister in
charge of budget, Fouzi Lekjaa, told journalists the government would increase
subsidies on flour to $400 million this year and stop charging import duties on
wheat.
Nearby
Tunisia,
with heavy debts and limited currency reserves, does not have that luxury. In
December, local media reported that ships delivering wheat had refused to unload
their cargo as they had not been paid.
Tunisia relies
on Ukrainian and Russian imports for 60 percent of its total wheat consumption,
according to agriculture ministry expert Abdelhalim Gasmi. He said current
stocks are sufficient until June.
Bread riots
Neighboring Algeria, which says it has a six-month supply, is
Africa’s
second-largest wheat consumer and the world’s fifth-largest cereals importer.
Egypt imports
the most wheat in the world and is Russia’s second-largest customer. It bought
3.5 million tons in mid-January, according to S&P Global.
The
Arab world’s
most populous country has started to buy elsewhere, particularly Romania, but
80 percent of its imports have come from Russia and Ukraine.
Egypt still has
nine months of stock to feed its more than 100 million people, government
spokesman Nader Saad said. But he added: “We will no longer be able to buy at
the price before the crisis.”
That is an
ominous sign for the 70 percent of the population who receive five subsidized
breads a day.
The weight of
the subsidized round food was reduced in 2020 and now the government is
considering raising the price – fixed at five piastres (0.3 cents) for the past
three decades – to get closer to the production cost.
When then-president
Anwar Sadat tried to drop the subsidy on bread in January 1977 “bread riots”
erupted. They stopped when he cancelled the increase.
Read more Business
.jpg)
.jpg)
