After Beirut silos gutted, Lebanon faces new wheat woes

Some 15,000 tonnes of wheat, corn and barley were blasted out of the silos at the Beirut port sparking concern that Lebanon will face bread shortages. BEIRUT: Precious wheat spilled out of disembowelled silos, mixing with soot, debris and cement: Beirut's port blast has gutted Lebanon's largest grain storage and sparked public panic over bread shortages.

Some 15,000 tonnes of wheat, corn and barley were blasted out of the towering 55-year-old silos and a nearby mill was destroyed.At least one ship unloading wheat during the explosion was damaged, its stocks inedible. "We were already struggling with the wheat and flour that were available. The mills weren't getting enough or they didn't have fuel to run," Bou Habib said.Even before the explosion, Wooden Bakery's 50 branches were only getting two-thirds of the 70 tonnes of flour they need daily.The day after the blast, hundreds of customers flocked to the Al-Kaboushieh Bakery in Beirut's Hamra district to stock up on bread.

Officials have tried to mollify fears of shortages, saying wheat already in the country would last a month and new shipments would arrive this week at Lebanon's two other ports, Tripoli in the north and Sidon in the south.But they lack silos, pointed out Moussa Khoury, a farming entrepreneur who ran Beirut's grain storage from 2014 to 2017.

Mill owners have already calculated that trucking wheat 80km from Tripoli to Beirut would cost an extra US$6 per tonne, said Arslan Sinno, president of Lebanon's Dora Mills.Sinno told AFP stocks in the silos and mills had already been low because of delays by the central bank in paying foreign suppliers.The United Nations is also sounding the alarm, warning on Thursday that with the port unusable, food prices would soar"beyond the reach of many".

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