Moroccan wheat output to rise, imports to fall: FNM

Morocco's wheat imports this year are projected to fall from 2020, as favourable weather conditions are expected to boost domestic production, Moroccan millers association FNM told Argus.

Domestic cereal output is forecast to exceed 10mn t this year, up from 3.2mn t a year earlier, amid rising rainfall during the 2020-21 marketing year which started in September, FNM chairman Moulay Abdelkader Alaoui said. Soft wheat traditionally makes up nearly 50pc of Morocco's total cereal production.

Wheat imports are expected to fall from a year earlier, with early estimates on the extent of the decline due later this month, Alaoui said.

Morocco's central bank Bank Al-Maghrib last week announced that domestic cereal production is expected to reach 9.5mn t this year.

And sown areas for cereal production in this marketing year reached 4.1mn hectares (ha) at the start of 2021 and were anticipated to total 4.3mn ha by the end of the planting season, the Moroccan agriculture ministry said in January. Soft wheat accounted for 44pc of sown areas, followed by barley (34pc) and durum wheat (22pc).

Average rainfall in Morocco between September and late March was 271.9mm, 5pc below the long-term average for the period, the agriculture ministry announced last week. In comparison, rainfall in the 2019-20 marketing year was nearly 40pc below seasonal norms. Wetter conditions have returned to Morocco since January, after a dry start to the marketing year.

Moroccan wheat imports last year totalled 4.37mn t, up from 2.98mn t in 2019, the latest GTT data show. France, traditionally the largest supplier of wheat to Morocco, exported 1.78mn t in 2020, followed by Ukraine at 934,755t.

By Bilal Muftuoglu