South Africa’s Crop Estimates Committee mildly lifted its forecast for 2020/21 summer grain and oilseeds production from last month by 1% to 18,7 million tonnes (this compared with 17,6 million tonnes in 2019/20 production season).
The data released this afternoon by the Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) show that South Africa’s 2020/21 summer grain and oilseed production could increase by 5% y/y to 18,5 million tonnes. While this is still the first production estimate for this season, with eight more to follow, this could be the largest on record if it materializes.
We discussed South Africa’s agricultural conditions following the recent rains and shared views on food price inflation path for 2021.
South Africa’s soybean production gains, at least in the near term, won’t translate into lower price changes for buyers such as poultry producers. Ultimately, the poultry producers’ input costs will remain elevated despite the increase in domestic soybean production.
South Africa’s agricultural production outlook remains buoyant, thanks to increased plantings and favourable weather conditions. What will be crucial this coming week and the week after that is sunshine, over the country’s summer crop-growing regions. Additional rainfall at this point would most likely cause waterlogging which, in turn, would undermine the yields.
Cyclone Eloise has already caused devastation in Mozambique’s Sofala province and other regions. At the time of writing, the cyclone threatened to cause heavy floods in southern Zimbabwe, the northeastern parts of SA, Eswatini, Malawi and far eastern Botswana.
