In Commodity News 10/06/2015
Algeria is aiming to boost grain production to an average of 6.7 million tonnes in the 2015 to 2019 period, Mohamed Belabdi, general director of the Office Algerien Interprofessionnel des Cereales (OAIC), said.
The North African country, one of the world’s top wheat importers, had implemented several measures including boosting storage, providing incentives for farmers to apply more fertilisers, rebates on crop insurance and encouraging the use of more certified seeds, he said.
“Grains are the weak point of agriculture in Algeria,” he told the International Grains Council’s annual conference in London, adding production between 2009 and 2012 averaged 5.1 million tonnes.
Belabdi said a new programme had been introduced in 2009 to help the sector evolve.
“Since we started to apply this new organisation in order to boost grain production there has been a constant change in grain output apart from last year where conditions were very difficult,” he said.
Algeria’s grain production fell to just 3.3 million tonnes last year and should rebound to a still below-average 4.6 million tonnes this year, according to IGC statistics.
“This year we have had similar (adverse) conditions but production has been better than the previous year,” he said.
Belabdi said grain provided 60 percent of the calorific intake of Algerians with demand shifting towards soft wheat baguettes from durum wheat flatbread.
“Algeria depends too much on grains. We now depend on a lot of soft wheat,” he said.
The country’s irrigation programme has centred around durum wheat production as it is difficult to produce soft wheat in such areas where temperatures can be around 40 degrees Celsius during harvest, Belabdi added.
“We can reach self sufficiency in durum wheat,” he said.
The IGC has forecast that Algeria will import 6.9 million tonnes of wheat in 2015/16, down slightly from 7.0 million tonnes in 2014/15.
