Health ministry joins party, bans wheat with any trace of ergot: Reuters’ Maha El Dahan and Eric Knecht, who have owned the wheat story in Egypt for the last year, note yesterday that the Health Ministry’s decision to join the party and ban wheat with even a trace of the fungus makes “zero ergot Egypt’s new normal.” The two report having seen a Health Ministry decree that sides with the Agriculture Ministry in banning even wheat shipments that meet UN FAO limits on ergo, noting that it will give the General Authority for Supply Commodities, the state’s wheat buyer and previously one of the most sophisticated outfits of its kind globally, absolutely zero room to maneuver. Reuters also has a nice timeline on the ergot flap if you need to get up to speed on events since December 2015. Ergot in very large doses may make you hallucinate, but apparently the mere idea of it is enough to drive policymakers to madness.