Agricultural production is key driver in slowing food producer inflation
The broad recovery in agricultural production is the key driver of the slowing trend in food producer inflation, the Agriculture Business Chamber (Agbiz), an organisation that represents commercial farmers and agribusiness enterprises nationally, said on Thursday. Food producers are seeing an easing of price pressures due to relatively low agricultural commodity prices. Data released on Thursday shows that SA’s food producer price inflation slowed to 9% year on year in February 2017 from 10.6% in January 2017. Agbiz said this could be transmitted to the consumer over the coming months, as it expects a lag before it can be reflected in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. SA is set to harvest record supplies for crops such as maize and soybeans. Total maize production is estimated at 14.3-million tonnes, which is the second-biggest crop on record since the 1980-81 season. Soybeans are set to be the biggest on record, estimated at 1.2-million tonnes. "The benefits of this recovery are...
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