Iraq concludes 2025 wheat marketing season with strategic reserve at 6.5 MT
Iraq‘s strategic wheat reserve is enough to cover the country’s consumption needs for the next 16 months.
IRAQ- Iraq’s Ministry of Trade, through its General Company for Grain Trading, has officially closed the 2025 wheat marketing season, announcing a record domestic procurement that secures the country’s food security for over a year.
Wheat is considered one of Iraq’s most crucial crops and a primary contributor to its agricultural economy.
According to Director General Haider Nour Al-Karaawi, the total quantity of locally sourced wheat received by the end of the season on July 19 stood at 5.119 million metric tons.
When added to the 1.4 million tons carried over from the 2024 season, Iraq’s strategic wheat reserve now stands at approximately 6.5 million tons, enough to cover the country’s consumption needs for the next 16 months.
“This year’s season was among the most successful in recent memory. There were no storage fires, and all stocks are safely stored across warehouses in all governorates. Our silos and mills are already receiving shipments for processing before the rainy season,” Al-Karaawi stated.
He attributed this achievement to local farmers’ resilience and increased use of modern irrigation techniques, such as sprinkler systems, which enabled them to maintain high yields despite persistent climatic challenges.
Notably, Iraq’s harvest success comes as other regional producers, including Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria, report steep declines in wheat output due to prolonged drought and extreme weather events.
Iraq’s wheat is primarily used for the national Public Distribution System (PDS), a food rationing program that provides essential commodities, including flour, to millions of Iraqis. The secure reserve also supports the government’s emergency stockpile, designed to stabilize the food supply during political, economic, or climate-related shocks.
Al-Karaawi emphasized that all wheat stocks are covered by insurance and stored under enhanced safety protocols to prevent incidents like those that occurred in past years, when fires destroyed thousands of tons of stored grain. In 2023 and 2024, fire outbreaks in several storage sites in Nineveh and Salahuddin had raised concerns over infrastructure weaknesses and sabotage.
According to him, this year, the absence of such incidents marks a significant improvement in grain storage management and safety enforcement, offering renewed confidence in Iraq’s handling of its most strategic agricultural commodity.
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