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RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE

Mill deliveries to be limited to flour for Arabic bread production until more wheat arrives

Mill deliveries to be limited to flour for Arabic bread production until more wheat arrives

Bags of wheat on a farm in the Bekaa Valley. (Credit: João Sousa/L’Orient Today)

BEIRUT — The Lebanon Mills Association announced Saturday that the relevant government ministries have ordered mill deliveries to be "limited to flour intended for the Arabic bread industry... until additional quantities of wheat arrive," the state-run National News Agency reported.

Here's what we know:

    • The announcement comes two days after Economy Minister Amin Salam, seeking to calm fears of wheat shortages in Lebanon due Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the country’s main wheat suppliers, reassured that Lebanon has sufficient wheat stocks to last “for a month or a month and a half.”

    • The decision to limit deliveries to flour intended for Arabic bread, a staple food in most Lebanese households, rather than for other baked good, came by agreement between Salam, Industry Minister George Bouchikian and Agriculture Minister Abbas Hajj Hassan, according to the mill association statement, and was made "in order to continue production of this type of flour for as long as possible, until additional quantities of wheat arrive, especially since the concerned ministers are making the necessary contacts with global markets, and these efforts may yield positive results, and therefore there is no need to panic and rush to bakeries and stockpiling flour and bread."

    • Lebanon imports the bulk of its wheat from the Black Sea region. During the eight years between 2010 and 2017 Russia was Lebanon’s largest wheat supplier in six of them, UN Comtrade data, while Ukraine was Lebanon’s largest wheat supplier in two of the years, and the second-largest supplier in five more. 

    • On Monday, a cargo of 7,000 tons of wheat from Ukraine began to be unloaded at the Port of Tripoli, and an additional shipment of 11,000 tons was on its way. Both ships had left Ukrainian ports shortly before the start of the Russian invasion.

    • Lebanon imports about 80 percent of the cereal products it consumes, including most of the soft wheat used for bread. Local farmers, who have been struggling amid the economic crisis and in many cases reducing their planting due to the cost of imported agricultural products like seeds and fertilizer, produce primarily the hard durum wheat used for pasta and some products used commonly in Lebanese cuisine, including bulgur and freekeh.

BEIRUT — The Lebanon Mills Association announced Saturday that the relevant government ministries have ordered mill deliveries to be "limited to flour intended for the Arabic bread industry... until additional quantities of wheat arrive," the state-run National News Agency reported.Here's what we know:    • The announcement comes two days after Economy Minister Amin Salam, seeking...