Published: 09/07/2018
South Africa is in for a fairly good harvest in 2017/18 production season, albeit being less than the record achieved in 2016/17 season. This was confirmed by the fifth production forecasts released by the National Crop Estimate Committee earlier. Most summer crop production forecasts were revised upwards from previous month’s levels, with the exception of sunflower seed, sorghum and dry beans which were left unchanged. – Wandile Sihlobo, Agbiz economist
South Africa is in for a fairly good harvest in 2017/18 production season, albeit being less than the record achieved in 2016/17 season. This was confirmed by the fifth production forecasts released by the National Crop Estimate Committee earlier. Most summer crop production forecasts were revised upwards from previous month’s levels, with the exception of sunflower seed, sorghum and dry beans which were left unchanged. Meanwhile, groundnuts production forecast was revised downwards by 11% from last month to 60 600 tonnes. On balance, this bodes well for trade and food inflation dynamics, as production volumes of major crops such as maize are set to be well above domestic consumption needs. At the same time, the higher soybean production will benefit the animal feed industry. Considering the domestic annual maize need of roughly 10.8 million tonnes, at the back of expected 13.2 million tonnes of production, coupled with an opening stock of 3.7 million tonnes, South Africa could see exports exceeding 2.5 million tonnes in the 2018/19 marketing year which ends on 30 April 2019.
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ENQUIRIES:
Wandile Sihlobo (wandile@agbiz.co.za)
Head: Agribusiness Research