فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
Rabat – The Competition Council issued a new opinion on the competitive situation of the industrial flour mills market in Morocco, in an official document published on March 27, 2025, which highlighted the structural constraints hindering the sector’s development, amid severe international disruptions affecting grain supply chains and raising their prices globally.
The report indicated that cereals constitute the backbone of global food security, as the areas cultivated with them in 2022 reached approximately 731 million hectares, or 52% of arable land worldwide, while wheat alone occupies about 219 million hectares, highlighting its strategic importance, especially in the Mediterranean region and Asia.
The Council explained that less than 40% of global grain production is directed toward direct human consumption, compared to allocating about 50% for livestock feed, with the remainder used in processing industries. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expects global production for 2024 to reach 2.848 billion tons, with a slight decline primarily resulting from drought in Europe, Mexico, and Ukraine, alongside the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
These factors contributed to exacerbating one of the most severe global food crises in recent decades, with rising fertilizer prices, geopolitical disruptions, and the building of strategic reserves by major importing countries.
In the national context, the report confirmed that Morocco remains a net importer of cereals, as the production of the 2022-2023 agricultural season reached approximately 55.1 million quintals, a figure better than the previous year but below the average of the past five years, due to consecutive drought years and the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global food crisis. Soft wheat imports during the 2024-2025 season are expected to rise by 19% to reach 7.5 million tons, making Morocco a major contributor to the expected African increase in imports.
Despite the gradual liberalization the sector has witnessed since the 1990s, the Competition Council believes that the flour mills market remains subject to intensive regulation given the sensitivity of grain products in the national consumer basket. The state intervenes through multiple mechanisms including support for imports, national production, and subsidized flour, alongside monitoring storage and marketing operations.
However, the Council warned that the intensity of these interventions negatively affects competitiveness and hinders market dynamics and its ability to innovate and face external shocks.
This opinion comes in implementation of the Royal directives contained in the speech of October 8, 2021, calling for the establishment of an integrated national system for strategic stockpiling of basic commodities, foremost among them cereals.
The Competition Council concluded with the necessity of profound structural reforms that would enhance national food security, improve value chain efficiency, raise the level of competitiveness, and reduce external dependency, while ensuring price stability and protecting vulnerable groups.
