Pakistan will reduce wheat imports, while Morocco will increase

Traders continue to monitor wheat harvest forecasts in major importing countries to assess possible import volumes.

In MY 2024/25, Pakistan will harvest a record 28.8 million tons of wheat, which will exceed the 2023/24 MY harvest by 2%, according to FAS USDA experts, thanks to the increase in sowing areas, effective use of fertilizers and certified seeds, and improved irrigation. Pakistan’s population is growing the fastest in the world, so the consumption of wheat and its processing products is growing steadily, and in 2024/24 MY will increase by 2.3% to a record 30.9 million tons.

Wheat is Pakistan’s most important crop, both in terms of food security and total production area. Almost 40% of the cultivated area or 9 million hectares will be planted with wheat.

Increased production and significant transitional stocks will allow Pakistan to import only 1 million tons of wheat in MY 2024/25, which will be 30% of the volume imported in FY 2023/24.

Also, in MY 2024/25, Pakistan will increase rice production by 5% compared to the previous season to a record 9.5 million tons thanks to the expansion of sowing areas and high yields. In recent years, the country has been steadily increasing rice production through the use of new high-yielding hybrid varieties. And only in 2022/23 MY, the harvest was severely affected by floods.

Morocco’s FNCL said the country will need to import at least 5 million tonnes of wheat in 2024/25 to meet domestic demand. According to the USDA of the country, due to the lack of precipitation, the area of grain crops will be reduced to 2.3 million hectares this year compared to 3.65 million hectares in 2023, as a result of which the total grain harvest (soft and durum wheat, barley) will decrease from last year’s 5.5 million tons to 2.5 million tons.

According to FNCL data, in MY 2023/24 (as of April 1) Morocco imported 4.13 million tons of soft wheat, of which 2.28 million tons came from France, 656 thousand tons from Germany, 301 thousand tons from the Russian Federation, 297 thousand tons from Romania and 202 thousand tons from Lithuania. The country’s current wheat stocks are sufficient to meet domestic demand for the next 3 months.

Tags: Morocco, Pakistan, wheat, imports