1. The Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit (PBDAC) is the main agency responsible for storage and distribution of domestically produced grains and pulses, fertilisers and animal feed. In addition, PBDAC imports (on behalf of public and private sector feed mills) yellow corn and distributes it throughout the country. PBDAC is a government-owned institution, which has combined banking, developmental and commercial functions under one umbrella and provides until now strong support to Egyptian agriculture.
It is the chief source of agricultural credit to the country's some 3 million farmers and maintains a very good track record of loan recovery.
PBDAC performs its commercial functions for a fee which covers its actual expenses and a commission. For instance, for fertilisers, it receives a 16.5 % commission on retail price, which covers all variable and fixed costs, and a commission charge. Similar commission are charged for the handling and distribution of animal feed, grains and pulses, and imported corn.
2. The Ministry of Supply and Interior Trade is responsible for:
· assessing the annual national requirement of grains and pulses;
· estimating the expected deficit or surplus by commodity;
· determining the required import or export levels in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MOA);
· upgrading national wheat and rice milling facilities and
· procuring, internationally, grains and wheat flour on most competitive prices, and arranging for their delivery to the Egyptian ports.
The actual unloading of vessels, storing and distributing of imported wheat and flour to mills, bakeries, sweets and macaroni producers is done by the Mills, Silos and Bakeries Authority, an establishment under the Ministry of Supply. This Authority produces flour and flour products and distributes them to retailers.
Also the General Company for Silos and Storage is an establishment under the Ministry of Supply and serves in storing of imported wheat and flour. This Company stores the imported grains in warehouses and in terminal grain elevators. At present, there are in Egypt 6 large grain elevators of a modern structure and a closed circulation system for grain fumigation by methyl bromide or phosphine.
These silos were established by the holding company for marketing of wheat and its products, hence a plan had started since 1992 for construction of a net of silos in order to cover the requirements of the populations in the cities and for reducing, handling and storage losses of imported wheat.
In this frame, 4 large grain elevators were built in the cities of Alexandria, Damietta, Safaga and Cairo for receiving the imported wheat. The capacity of each silo is about 100.000 tons.
Also metal silos with a capacity of 30.000 tons each were established in Fayoum, Beni Suef, Menia, Idfu, Kous, Bellina and Assiut. Others planned to be built in the governorates of Mansoura, Tanta and Shebin el-Koum.
Besides , the government of Egypt develops the railway to transport the imported wheat in bulk from the ports of Alexandria and Damietta to the constructed silos in Upper Egypt especially in Fayoum, Menia, Beni Suef and later to Aswan. The storage period of wheat in such silos is about 3 months.