TUNIS- Tunisia expects cereal harvest to drop by a third this year, to 1.57 million tonnes from 2.4 million tonnes last year due to a lack of rain, TAP state news agency quoted the agriculture minister as saying on Monday.

Tunisia's grain purchases are sufficient to cover its needs until the end of the year, Oussama Khriji said.

Its cereal import requirements in the 2020/2021 season will rise by 20% to 3.8 million tonnes, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report said this month.

The North African country devotes most of its fertile irrigated farmland to durum wheat, and mainly imports soft wheat and barley.

It aims to reach domestic cereals production of 2.7 million tonnes per year.

Farming represents about 13% of Tunisia's gross domestic product.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; editing by Louise Heavens and Jason Neely) ((tarek.amara@thomsonreuters.com;))