ALGIERS, ALGERIA — Although overall wheat imports have increased in recent years, the Algerian government has targeted 2025 as the year to achieve self-sufficiency in durum production and halt durum imports, a recent report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture said.

Youcef Chorfa, Algeria’s minister of agriculture, announced in September that 52% of the country’s grain acreage in marketing year 2024-25 will be dedicated to durum wheat.

Algeria has seen durum imports rise sharply from around 700,000 tonnes in 2019-20 to nearly 2 million tonnes last year, the report said.

Poor harvests and an emphasis on increasing grain stockpiles have led to an increase in Algerian wheat imports in recent years, the FAS said.

The agency sees Algeria, the leading consumer of wheat in North Africa, importing 9 million tonnes of the food grain in marketing year 2024-25, a 400-tonnne decrease from the previous year but above the five-year average. Because Algeria’s relatively hot temperatures are not conducive to growing bread wheat, production usually hovers around 3 million tonnes, far short of domestic consumption, which usually hovers around 11.5 million tonnes, according to FAS data.