Zimbabwean government takes control of its maize market
I’ve noticed on the news wires this evening that Zimbabwe has banned its local farmers from selling maize to anyone other than the state Grain Marketing Board as the government moves to keep prices of the staple food down. This move follows a poor harvest after...Personal note — Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans 2019
The Mail & Guardian has included my name on its list of 200 Young South Africans 2019. In the past, this list had great South Africans like Mr Julius Malema, Mr Trevor Noah and Professor Mamokgedi Phakeng, and other folks. I am humbled to have my name written in...
South Africa’s maize supplies are not looking at all bad
SA’s maize supplies for the 2018/2019 production year are shaping up better than feared in January 2019. This is when dryness in the western parts of the country threatened to delay plantings. On June 26, SA’s Crop Estimates Committee left its 2018/2019 maize harvest...
Notes on South Africa-India Agricultural Trade
This afternoon (June 25), my colleague, Theo Boshoff and I will be meeting with the Indian business delegation that is in South Africa for various matters. They want to discuss agricultural trade. I’ve been trying to put my thoughts in order ahead of the meeting. So,...
Keep an eye on the U.S. maize market
O.K., folks, I have to confess, by the time I was writing a piece following last week’s U.S. Crop Progress report, I thought the U.S. farmers would have completed maize plantings by now. But the data coming out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows...
The plot thickens in Southern and East Africa maize maze
Sometimes the light comes from the most unusual places. This morning Bloomberg put out a piece noting that Tanzania is set to sell 1 million tonnes of maize to neighbouring Kenya which is facing a major maize shortfall this year. At first glance, one would think –...
Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and the author of “Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity, and Agriculture.”
Sihlobo is Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.
He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Fort Hare and a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from Stellenbosch University.
Sihlobo was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019 after serving on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture between 2018 and 2019.
He is also a member of the Council of Statistics of South Africa (Stats SA) and a Commissioner at the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC).
Sihlobo is a columnist for Business Day and Farmers Weekly magazine.