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Thursday, 8 September 2016

Egypt rejects wheat in Romania over ergot

Egyptian inspectors rejected a c.63k tonne shipment of wheat at a Romanian port on Wednesday, Reuters reported in an exclusive, in what would be the first such shipment rejected at its source since Egypt resumed its zero tolerance policy on ergot. Previously rejected shipments had already been paid for by the private sector, save for a shipment sold to state buyer GASC by Bunge in December. “This is a catastrophe… They are giving everyone problems at the moment at ports of origin. There is a problem with Russian wheat at Novorossiysk and with another Romanian shipment as well,” said one unnamed Cairo-based trader to Reuters

Let them eat cake: Assaad Hamada, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s Central Authority for Seed Production, tacitly justified the zero tolerance policy in a televised debate (runtime: 40:03) by stating that the average Egyptian consumes 186 kg of wheat annually while the global average is 70-80 kg of wheat per capita per annum, blaming this for Egypt’s growing import needs.

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