Global Arab Network | Record harvests - Algeria boosting grain production

Translate this article to your language:

GANPublications

e-Publications

Add Site to Favorites

Add Page to Favorites

Make Homepage

Share This Page

RSS Feed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |

Record harvests - Algeria boosting grain production

Friday, 30 July 2010 09:54

Algeria’s determined efforts to boost grain production are starting to reap rewards, with record harvests last year and strong yields in 2010 helping to cut import costs and provide secure employment in rural areas. However, the country’s goal of food self-sufficiency still appears some way off.

Since 2008 the state has stepped up its efforts to increase output, combining subsidies on supplies such as seeds and pesticides with a rigid price floor for crops and a programme to improve irrigation.

The success of the initiative was seen in Algeria’s return to the export market in early June, with the first consignment of a 100,000-tonne order of barley for France its first export of the grain in more than 40 years.

Algeria plans to build on the achievement, said Noureddine Kehal, the head of the state grain agency, Office Algerien Interprofessionnel des Cereales.

“We still have a large stock of barley, and can easily export several other cargoes,” Kehal said at a ceremony on June 5 to mark the historic shipment. “We will export more, but not now because the prices are going down so close to harvest season.”

Stronger performance in grain production and improved output from other agriculture sectors have seen Algeria’s food import bill fall substantially. Import costs were down by 36% in May compared to the same month in 2009, according to data from the Customs National Centre for Informatics and Statistics.

Despite the reduced demand for foreign grain, Algeria is expected to remain a net importer of cereals for the foreseeable future. Algeria imported some 1.94m tonnes of wheat in the first four months of the year, while in late June it bought 400,000 tonnes of milling wheat at a cost of $194.50 a tonne, or $77.8m in total.

Algeria was able to take advantage of pressures in the market to strike a good price for the consignment, with traders cited by the Reuters news agency saying that the per tonne tariff was around $6 below the replacement cost on the French market, which is believed to have supplied most if not all of the grain.

While continuing to purchase wheat and other grains such as corn from abroad, it is likely that Algeria will reduce its imports from the almost 5.7m tonnes of wheat taken in last year.

Conversely, Algeria’s return to the barley export market may be short-lived. With the government doing all it can to promote wheat production, some farmers are shifting away from barley to take advantage of higher prices.

The government has sought to encourage wheat planting by making seeds and fertilisers available to farmers and providing technical assistance. It has also renewed its commitment to price support, guaranteeing farmers it will pay tariffs equal to those offered on the international market. This commitment, which started in 2008, has seen prices offered for durum and soft wheat varieties rise far above those available for barley.

Some of the areas best known for barley growing also experienced lower-than-average rainfall in winter and spring, further pushing down the expected yields for this year.

Rachid Benaissa, the Algerian agriculture minister, cautioned in mid-June that while the country’s grain harvest this year would be good overall, yields would be somewhat down on the bumper crop of last year, when some 6.1m tonnes were brought into the silos.

“Regarding wheat, this year will be good,” he said on June 17. “We expect lower barley output.”

These lowered forecasts appeared to be in line when in early July media reports said ministry officials were projecting that the grain harvest would be somewhere between 5 and 5.5m tonnes.

Djamal Berchiche, a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, told Reuters that only 21% of the 3.3m ha planted for grains had been harvested as of July 4, making it hard to give an exact estimate of crop yields. He confirmed, however, that the barley harvest would likely be down due to poor weather conditions in some regions.

“We will have better durum wheat output, a stabilisation in the soft wheat output and less barley this season,” Berchiche said.

Though the government is working to increase the country’s grain harvest, an element of uncertainty hangs over the sector due to the widespread reliance on rainfall to water fields. With only a fraction of Algeria’s grain-producing lands irrigated – just 2% by some estimates – Algerian farmers will need more reliable sources of water before the agriculture sector can realise its full potential.

Global Arab Network

This article is published in partnership with Oxford Business Group

< Prev		Next >

Last Updated on Tuesday, 15 February 2011 14:31

Add comment

The opinions of the authors in articles published are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Global Arab Network
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published comments are the opinions of private individuals and do not reflect the views of Global Arab Network