Egypt may import more wheat this season than had initially been thought despite soaring prices, with demand spurred by concerns over next summer's domestic crop and by a quest to reduce reliance on rice.
US Department of Agriculture officials in Cairo lifted above 10m tonnes their forecast for Egypt's purchases of foreign wheat, after adding the country, already the top importer of the grain, to the list of countries already dogged by fears for the 2011-12 crop.
Besides a reduction in sowings estimated at 100,000 acres, or roughly 7%, "yields may also be down because of the lack of availability of high quality seeds", the USDA attaches said in a report.
About 25-30% of the crop was sown with seed deemed of high quality, compared with the 50% that Egypt's government aspires to.
The country was set to "build up stocks, as the wheat supply situation facing Egypt next marketing year is unclear".
Rice vs wheat
Furthermore, the government is planning replace 500,000 tonnes of rice in state food programmes with an equal quantity of macaroni, which is made from wheat.
The government has been having "severe problems" procuring sufficient rice and, furthermore, has come under pressure from exporters to allow some shipments abroad.
"By reducing government demand on local rice supplies, the government will likely be able to permit some rice sales without impacting prices," the report said.
Egypt's rice exports halved to 600,000 tonnes between 2006-07 and last season.
Crop setbacks
The officials pegged Egypt's 2010-11 wheat imports at 10.2m tonnes, putting it 400,000 tonnes above official USDA estimates, and only marginally down on last year's purchases.
The US, which has the richest supplies of any world wheat exporter, was set to provide at least 3.5m tonnes of this, with the Black Sea exporters sidelined by a drought-damaged harvest.
The persistence of the drought into last autumn has prompted forecasts that Russia will be unable even this year to return to grain production of 90m tonnes or more which had appeared likely to become the norm.
Meanwhile, winter wheat crops in China and the US have been dogged by dry start.
