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Business Daily

Lebanon's wheat crisis

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4816 Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2022

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The price of bread is soaring in Lebanon. More than half of the country's wheat imports came from Ukraine - they've now stopped because of the conflict.

Inflation also continues to rise to record levels. We speak to ordinary people who are struggling to buy food. Brant Stewart, the founder of Mavia Bakery in Beirut, explains how he's found a solution in growing and milling his own wheat - as well as helping local women.

Rami Zurayk, the Director of the Food Security programme at the American University of Beirut, tells us he believes Lebanese people need to be less reliant on bread in their diet.

Presenter: Anna Foster Producer: Jo Critcher

(Picture: Women at work in Mavia Bakery; Credit: Maria Klenner, photographer)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, I'm Anna Foster, the BBC's Middle East correspondent, and welcome to Business Daily.

0:07.8

Today we're looking at the wheat crisis in Lebanon.

0:10.9

You don't know when they will stop making breads and without it you cannot eat.

0:16.0

We speak to one bakery that's encouraging farmers to grow their own wheat rather than rely on imports.

0:22.7

It's just going to take some time, I think, educating people, helping them to understand

0:26.2

the importance of why we should be growing this, but then also just having them taste it

0:31.0

and realize how delicious it is.

0:33.6

This is Business Daily from the BBC.

0:40.6

Well, this is where it starts, and those noises are the machines that are mixing and kneading the dough.

0:47.8

And then they're being pressed out into these circles that roll all the way along a conveyor belt

0:53.3

and into this incredibly hot oven right here.

1:01.0

So we'll catch them coming out the other end.

1:04.0

The thing about Arabic bread is when you buy it in a pack, it's very flat.

1:10.0

But actually when it comes out of the oven,

1:12.6

and they're rolling along in front of me now in pairs,

1:15.6

they're all puffed up, golden, hot, steaming,

1:19.6

and rolling along this production line.

1:21.6

So they...

1:23.6

I'm just going to close this door and leave the oven behind

1:26.6

and just follow them along the conveyor belt where they're cooling again.

1:32.0

And then they sort of collapse back down again from these golden puffy loaves down into very, very flat pieces of bread.

1:40.3

And I'm just, there's so many of them now stacked up in front of me.

...

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