Government hits local wheat purchase target: Egypt has reached its target for wheat purchases from local farmers for the year, Bloomberg reported. Egypt bought 4.076 mn tonnes of local wheat during the current harvest, slightly above the 4.0 mn tonne-target. The government is committed to buying all the wheat supplied from farmers, and the local procurement season will not end before then, Agriculture Ministry Spokesperson Eid Hawwash asserted on Al-Ghad satellite TV on Wednesday (runtime: 3:01). Local purchases of wheat are expected to hit 5 tons or a little less by the end of the season, Hawwash said. Also, the ministry has paid farmers in full for the harvest through the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Land, he said, after they had complained of being underpaid. Meanwhile, the EBRD suggests buying wheat is not the only important step as Egypt loses 10-20% of its overall wheat supply due to inadequate infrastructure along the the supply chain, according to Daily News Egypt. Blumberg Grain chief Philip Blumberg has met with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in recent weeks to discuss the next phase of a national network of wheat storage and handling infrastructure that Blumberg is building to address exactly that problem.