South African farmers and farmworkers are hard at work across the country. The maize farmers are busy harvesting the 2024-25 crop. In the week of June 13, 2025, South African farmers delivered 851,814 tonnes of the new season maize to commercial silos. This was the seventh delivery for the new season, bringing the overall maize deliveries so far to 3,3 million tonnes.
If you compare this with the overall volume delivered during the same period in the last season, the current volumes are down 46% due to the season’s slow start. We are roughly a month behind compared to the typical harvest pace, as we faced some weather challenges at the beginning of the season.
The late start of the season, along with the extended rainfall window into April, has raised some concerns about quality. Indeed, if one examines the maize delivered so far to the silos, the quality is an issue in some regions, particularly with white maize. For example, in the 3,3 million tonnes delivered so far, about 1,4 million tonnes is white maize.
Of the 1.4 million tonnes of white maize delivered, the first grade (WM1) accounts for 74%. In regular seasons, this figure would typically exceed 90%. We have observed an increase in the second grade (WM2), which accounts for 22% of the crop delivered to date.
In the case of yellow maize, the crop appears to be in good condition, with 92% of the delivered crop being first-grade (YM1).
Still, we are early in the season, and we will have a more accurate view of the quality conditions later.
What remains encouraging so far is that the volumes are decent. South Africa’s 2024-25 maize harvest is estimated at 14,64 million tonnes, a 14% increase year-on-year, primarily due to expected annual yield improvements.
We will get a monthly update of these forecasts from the Crop Estimate Committee on June 27, and we don’t anticipate many adjustments from these encouraging forecasts.
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