Turkey sets temporary limits on flour exports.

Andrei Grigorov
Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read

The recent plunge of Turkish Lira is not only affecting Turkish citizens (through higher inflation) but also countries importing Turkish wheat flour.

Turkey is the number 1 wheat flour exporter in the world.

Its milling wheat industry is great: huge, modern, cost efficient.

Not everybody knows, but for years, a great humanitarian food supply chain has functioned very well: Russia/Ukraine supplied cheap and good quality wheat to Turkey, which transformed it into the cheapest, and of good quality, wheat flour, and exported mainly to the countries who can permit to pay only cheap prices.

In 2017 Turkey made around 70 percent of its flour exports to Iraq, Sudan and Syria, as well as Angola, Benin and Somalia (out of 3.6 million tons total).

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-worlds-number-one-flour-exporter-125531

This came to supplement humanitarian aid to these countries. And in terms of wheat flour, Turkish exports to these countries were much higher than humanitarian aid could deliver.

I’m proud having participated in this chain for more than 10 years as a supplier of Russian wheat to Turkey.

But now this humanitarian food chain is falling apart.

Sanctions, tumbling national currencies (notably in Russia, Turkey and Sudan) and still all international contracts labelled in USD are the culprits.

As a result, the number of Russian ships bringing wheat into Turkey currently has fallen from 10 a day to fewer than 10 a week, according to S&P Global Platts.

https://www.world-grain.com/articles/10947-turkey-puts-temporary-limit-on-flour-exports

Turkey restricting wheat flour exports.

Bread shortages now for example hitting Sudan.

https://www.voanews.com/a/sudanese-hit-by-bread-shortages-as-currency-crunch-escalates/4528393.html

Looks like governments worldwide do not care.

I really hope Blockchain and other Fintech solutions will soon bring the solutions to maintain such food supply chains (and there are others, for vegetable oils, meats, etc).

With traders able to trade in their respective national currencies, stablecoins and cryptos.

Cerealia

To improve agri-business so profoundly, traders won't go back to the old ways

Andrei Grigorov

Written by

Grain Trader and Blockchain Entrepreneur.

Cerealia

Cerealia

To improve agri-business so profoundly, traders won't go back to the old ways

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