AGRICULTURE
WANDILE SIHLOBO: Food crop figures show SA won’t starve
’SA is in a relatively comfortable position for food production and the weather prospects paint a promising picture’
With all the negative economic and political news in SA, food production is at least one positive fundamental we can all feel at ease about. This year brought a large summer grain and oilseed harvest of 18.1-million tonnes, a 92% annual increase.
In addition, there was a rebound in vegetable production. The benefits of this rebound are already reflected in grain commodity markets, with maize prices down by more than 60% from last year. This has not yet been fully reflected on the shelves at retail level due to time lags in the food-processing chain, and to some degree the sticky nature of prices.
For example, in May the average price of a 5kg bag of super maize meal was down 7% on May 2016, trading at R46.92. The full benefits of this year’s big harvest should be reflected later in the third quarter and early last quarter of the year. Prices of potatoes were 20% lower on retail shelves in May at about R1.55/kg. More encouraging is that the weather outlook for the next season has changed drastically from what I noted in my column on April 29. Then, international weather forecasters such as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and Earth Institute at Columbia University warned of a possible return of the El Niño phenomenon, pencilling in a 50% chance of this occurring later this year. This raised concern about another drought and the effect on the agricultural sector, especially as some areas are still recovering from last season’s drought. This would be terrible for rural communities.The Western Cape is SA’s main dryland winter wheat-producing region, which means the survival ...
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