An ongoing wheat shortage plaguing the flour industry and prompting factory closures are sending shockwaves through the animal feed sector. The bi-product of wheat which is essential for feed production, has become scarce due to low production and led to soaring prices which in turn made dairy farmers cautious about difficulties to maintain livestock health and productivity.

In a recent plea to the ministries of Trade & Regional Integration and Industry, the Ethiopian Millers Association highlighted the impending risk of around 3,000 employees being laid off in the flour industry. The collateral impact on the animal feed industry is now surfacing as wheat scarcity disrupts the production of essential feed byproducts with prices shooting up from 1400 Br to 2,500 Br this year.

Acute wheat shortages assail the flour industry, prompting some factories to shut while others continue to barely maintain operations at significantly lower levels than their full capacity. Meanwhile, imports through the Franco Valuta scheme proliferate in the market.

The 28-year-old Association, under Muluneh Girma, cautions against the mass closure of factories as millers are compounded by a nexus of crises in demand and input provision.

Five millers have already shut down operations.

The current harvest's seasons' poor yield due to problems of excess moisture compounded by the pervasive rise in plant pathogens, which has wreaked havoc on potential supply to the millers, is also indicated as an additional problem.

"Five millers have already shut down operations," Muluneh said.

He said the quantity of production largely rests on the quality of suitable wheat harvests that arrive at the factory floors, prompting the Association to call for an urgent meeting with the ministries.

"How is imported flour allowed with over 450 millers in the country?" he enquired.

The lack of wheat supply to the 349 local millers is a contrasting development to the wheat export initiative, which was purportedly implemented last year as Ethiopia earned 50 dollars a quintal for exported items.

Botanists reveal that wheat production and productivity are affected by complex and interactive effects of biotic and abiotic factors and socio-economic challenges, particularly in smallholder farming systems. The Ministry of Agriculture has laid out plans to produce upwards of 117 million quintals of wheat on three million hectares of land this year as Ethiopia's continued march towards wheat self-sufficiency progresses.

Wheat diseases, such as stem rust, stripe or yellow rust, leaf rust and pests remain critical biotic factors affecting wheat production.

Hussien Mohammed, owner of Mizan Flour & Biscuit Factory, reveals they have completely stopped production, struggling to obtain sufficient wheat supply for operations. The Company established nearly a decade ago with eight million Birr capital and a daily production capacity of 400qtl, has faced an existential dilemma in the past year.