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Lebanese fear wheat shortage amid Ukrainian crisis

Amid the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, concerns are growing in Lebanon over a shortage of wheat supplies, as the country imports the bulk of its wheat needs from Ukraine.

Wheat grains spilled from the silos at Beirut port in the massive explosion Aug. 4, 2020, are fully grown, Lebanon, May 27, 2021.
Wheat grains spilled from the silos at Beirut port in the massive explosion Aug. 4, 2020, are fully grown, Lebanon, May 27, 2021. — Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images

BEIRUT — Lebanon might be facing a wheat crisis with the onset of the war in Ukraine, as it imports the bulk of its wheat supplies from the eastern European country. Amid the crippling Lebanese economic crisis, people fear the state will be unable to provide the market’s need for wheat to produce bread.

“We are trying to manage a crisis right now, and we have no plans. We only have stocks for about a month and a half,” Geryes Berbari, the Economy Ministry's general director of the grains and sugar beets department, told Al-Monitor. “We are currently looking for an alternative to Ukrainian wheat.”

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