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Sunday, 17 September 2017

Poppy-seed wheat fiasco came from confusion over type of poppy flower?

Confusion over the red and pink types of the poppy flower were behind the holdups regarding the poppy-containing wheat shipments, the French embassy has suggested, according to Bloomberg. “Red poppies, or papaver rhoeas, can grow in fields of grain crops where their life cycle matches management of the land, according to the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. The pink flower, papaver somniferum, can be cultivated for opium. The seeds of the red type aren’t toxic, the French embassy said in a letter to Egypt’s import and export authority.” A senior analyst at Eurasia Group says the timing of the dispute is not good for Egypt as “creating a bottleneck, creating these sort of problems in the supply of food to the population could actually have a disruptive impact.” Egyptian authorities had agreed last week to sieve the shipments before deciding whether to reject them or not. Reuters is noting that the shipments continue to be under the custody of the Prosecutor General as of Saturday.

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