Some positive developments in the global wheat market
We have previously warned of the restrictions placed by countries on agricultural commodity exports, specifically rice and wheat. The concern was that restrictions in the world’s larger supplier markets would inevitably result in drastic price increases of the...
Wheat and Rice Export Restrictions
Regular readers of this blog would know that I write often. But the frequency over the past few weeks has reduced somewhat because of the increased demand for time in this unusual time of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the sake of consistency and ensuring that I cover key...
Keeping up with SA grain trade
This note is a bit delayed. I had to attend a conference this morning. Here is a Twitter feed for those keen to see what went down. Back to business! It is Thursday – a grain trade day. The South African Grain Information Services (SAGIS) releases the country’s grain...
Benefits of farm productivity
Nowadays we take for granted how the world agricultural productivity has improved over the past couple of decades. Today’s farms produce more maize, wheat, soybeans, etc. per hectare than any other time in history. This has been made possible by, amongst other...
Grain Trade Day
The South African Grain Information Services releases the country’s grain trade data for the week of 7th of February 2020 by midday. The data covers maize and wheat. While these data are important for tracking the movement of grains into and outside South Africa, they...
A mixed bag of grains
We had important data out overnight – the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, produced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The commodities I typically pay close attention to in this report are wheat, maize and soybeans, for...
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“.
He is a Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.
Sihlobo was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019 (and re-appointed in 2022), having served on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture from 2018.
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, The Herald and Farmers Weekly magazine.
His weekly podcast, “Agricultural Market Viewpoint with Wandile Sihlobo“, is available on all podcast platforms.
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.