CAPE TOWN: South Africa faces record imports of wheat, as well as of corn, as it seeks to underpin food supplies in the face of “one of the worst droughts on record” – which has left the country looking at a 25% slump in output this year.
The US Department of Agriculture bureau in Pretoria pegged at 3.0m tonnes South Africa’s corn imports in the year starting in May 2016, twice the figure that the USDA has officially pencilled in.
The figure, while below some other market estimates, would represent a record for country which is typically a net exporter of corn to other southern African countries, but has seen its crop prospects slashed by extended drought blamed on El Nino.
The country is “battling one of the worst drought ever records that already started in early 2015”, the USDA bureau said, forecasting the forthcoming harvest at a nine-year low of 8.0m tonnes. That would represent a drop of 25% on last year’s result, which was itself drought affected, although represents a more upbeat figure than that from other commentators.
South Africa’s official Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) last week pegged the crop at 7.44m tonnes, a figure above the 5.5m-6.5m tonnes that private analysts had been factoring in. Producers’ group Grain SA, factoring in the CEC figure, lowered its forecast for South Africa’s corn import needs by 1.2m tonnes to 3.8m tonnes.
