Tunis: The Grain Office considers building new grain silos (soft wheat, durum wheat and barley) by 2027, with a total capacity of almost 120,000 tonnes, worth TND 205 million, said OC CEO Salwa Benhadid Zouari.

These new silos will be located in Rades (capacity of 40,000 tonnes), Sousse (58,000 tonnes) and Sfax (38,000), she added in an interview with TAP Studio.

The Grain Office will also renovate silos built since 1985, with a storage capacity of 206,000 tonnes, worth TND 143 million.

The construction and renovation of silos programme is part of reforms of the grain sector, she specified.

The goal is to ensure sufficient storage capacity to take up the quantities of the collected grain, preserve them in good conditions, and maintain the safety stock level.

Actually, the Grain Office will be able to seize opportunities offered on the international market by making purchases at appropriate prices, thanks to these new storage capacities, she indicated.

The renovation programme of the silos will be carried out gradually to ensure the continuity of the country's grain supply.

The Grain Office's nationwide storage infrastructure has a total capacity of 508,000 tonnes, divided between three port silos with a capacity of 74,000 tonnes, eight fallback silos (168,000 tonnes), and 10 fallback silos leased from the private sector (272,000 tonnes), while the storage capacity of flour mills stands at 290,000.


For the 2024-2025 season, additional storage capacity of about 47,500 tonnes has so far been recorded in order to better manage the flow of grain.

Towards organising training sessions on open-air storage

The organisation of training sessions on open-air storage had been decreed by the government during a small cabinet meeting devoted to the preparations for the 2025 grain harvest season, the official underlined.

"Open-air storage is one of the different types of storage. We use this storage technique on an ad hoc basis, mainly for barley and large quantities," she said.

"However, this storage technique requires compliance with a number of technical rules against changing weather conditions, hence the importance of training sessions," she explained.

TND 2,400 million earmarked to finance collectors

A budget of TND 2,400 million has been earmarked to finance 35 collectors, including the Grain Office.

This budget is part of the measure taken by the government to authorise, on an exceptional basis, the Grain Office to finance grain purchases for the 2025 season, and to set up a committee tasked with examining purchase requests and validating them within a timeframe not exceeding mid-April 2025, the official pointed out.

As such, collectors will be able to finance grain purchases from farmers, either by their own means or by means of financing granted by the Grain Office, in accordance with well-defined conditions.

The overall grain harvest for the 2024/2025 season is estimated at some 780,000 tonnes, in addition to the extra collection capacities identified (estimated at 54,800 tonnes) in Beja, Siliana, Jendouba, Bizerte, Kairouan and Zaghouan governorates, she indicated.

Grain transfer programme to be drawn up based on estimated quantities

There is need for a good national storage capacity, notably during a good grain season, when the harvested quantities exceed 900,000 tonnes, in order to transfer these quantities to the fallback silos in the consumption zones, Zouari considered.

The CEO further indicated that the daily rate of collection becomes higher during peak periods reaching 12,000 tonnes, i.e. a transfer capacity of the collected quantities by rail or lorries (400), compared with a daily rate (which could be extended over 10 days) of 34,000 tonnes.

The small cabinet meeting also decided to coordinate with the Interior Ministry and suspend the 22-tonne load limit for grain transport trucks. This measure aims to optimise available transport capacity, she recalled.

© Tap 2022 Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).