
The State of the South African countryside
My annual December drive from Pretoria to the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape affords me an opportunity to assess South Africa’s agricultural conditions after the first few months of the summer season.
My annual December drive from Pretoria to the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape affords me an opportunity to assess South Africa’s agricultural conditions after the first few months of the summer season.
After contracting for two consecutive quarters, South Africa’s agricultural gross value added expanded by 19,2% quarter-on-quarter (seasonally adjusted) in the third quarter of this year. The better yields of some field crops and horticulture, combined with relatively higher prices, specifically grains, and oilseeds, underpin this improvement.
While the early part of the summer season has brought heavy rains over some regions of SA, I still consider conditions broadly favorable. The delays we see in summer grain and oilseed plantings are not a unique or particularly worrying development.
SA could have another favourable agricultural season in 2022/2023. However, higher production will require careful planning by farmers and agribusinesses regarding finances and planting times.
The USDA forecasts South Africa’s commercial maize plantings at 2,60 million hectares in the 2022/23 season, broadly aligned with the CEC, whose data points to a possible area of 2,59 million hectares. This area is slightly below the 2021/22 season of 2,62 million hectares. Still, it is well above the long-term average.
In this week’s episode, I assess what Kenya’s decision to lift the ban on the cultivation and importing of genetically modified (GM) white maize means for the country’s long-term production.
The 2022/2023 global grains and oilseeds season presents an encouraging picture of supplies. These forecasts will probably be sufficient to provide relief from the levels the grains and oilseeds prices were at in the weeks after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.
The robust tractor sales since the start of the year, prospects of yet another La Niña albeit weaker than last season, and the relatively higher commodity prices point to possibilities of decent area plantings in the 2022/23 summer crop season.