There are two significant maize-producing countries in Southern Africa: SA and Zambia. These countries face a double-digit harvest decline in 2021/22. Still, this won’t risk causing a shortage in the region.
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These data paint a positive picture of South Africa’s grains production. The winter grains still have a long way until we have a reliable estimate of the size of the harvest and its implications of it on prices.
The EU is among regions that have, for some time, resisted importing and cultivating genetically engineered (GE) crops. But this changed on July 1, when the European Commission approved the importation of GE maize for human and animal consumption.
The extreme weather events in the northern hemisphere are a warning signal for farmers worldwide. A critical signal for the southern hemisphere is that it could also face weather events that are more extreme in the 2022/2023 summer season. This region will start its summer crop planting in October.
The cost of living is rising and everyone is feeling the impact. Some are asking why SA exports food when millions live in poverty and prices are surging. Why not cater for South Africans first and block exports? Do we have sufficient food for ourselves before worrying about the global consumer?
Warmer or drier weather is needed to complete the harvests of the summer crop and citrus, as well as transporting of product. Simultaneously, we need rains for the winter crops, which are now in the middle of their planting season, and for various horticulture products, mainly in the Western Cape.
SA will likely be in its fourth consecutive La Niña season in 2022/23, bringing higher-than-normal rainfall. This is an unusual occurrence. The only period in the recent past that had three or more successive years of conducive weather conditions and the accompanying large crop harvests was between 2007 and 2010.
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.