Egyptian authorities have reached their domestic wheat procurement target for this harvest season, Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture announced on Wednesday.

The government has bought 4.07 million tonnes of wheat from Egyptian growers, meeting the target of 4-4.5 million tonnes announced in March by the vice chairman of Egypt's state grain buyer Mamdouh Abdel-Fattah.

Egypt’s government has long bought wheat from local farmers at a subsidised, higher-than-international price to encourage domestic production and provide for its nationwide subsidised bread programme that feeds tens of millions.

Authorities offered a subsidised price of EGP 420 per ardeb for local wheat this season, reversing an earlier decision to buy from local farmers at the international price while granting them a direct cash subsidy of EGP 1,300 per feddan of wheat in order to prevent graft.

Last year, the government announced buying a record 5.3 million tonnes of wheat from local farmers, compared to 3.7 million in the previous year. This prompted speculation from industry experts that as much as 2 million tonnes may have been imported wheat passed off as local grain to take advantage of the subsidised price.

The Arab world's most populous nation, Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat, bringing in an estimated 11 million tonnes during the 2015/16 marketing year (July/June) according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).