The drought has caused vast swathes of the maize belt to suffer below-average rainfall for several years.The 2015-2016 drought brought already-parched areas of SA to their knees, especially in the North West and Free State, adding to the woes of the farming sector.With lower rainfall, crop yields and production of the key input supply chain of maize and wheat fell in the harvest season. For a country used to sufficiency in grains, a slump to 7.5 Mt of maize was a blow. Imports have made up the slack as SA needs 10 Mt/year to sustain itself.The impact to farmers, their employees and communities was crippling but the ripple effect into materially higher prices of such grains on the Safex futures market, alongside a volatile rand, saw maize and wheat prices soar.This had a flow-through effect into virtually every aspect of the food-manufacturing chain.Rising food price inflation, not just in basic grains, but in fresh produce (also hit by the drought) led to surging prices for food man...
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