Spotlight on SA wheat market

• We continue to monitor the weather developments across the country as the winter wheat crop is still at the stages of development that requires moisture. The key producing provinces are the Western Cape, Free State, Northern Cape and Limpopo, collectively accounting for 95 percent of the estimated area of 505 000 hectares in the 2018/19 production season.
• The crop is the Western Cape, a leading producer with 63 percent share, was planted earlier than all other provinces and benefited from rainfall in the past couple of weeks. However, this was not evenly distributed, all areas received good showers, with the exception of the southern Cape. This is mirrored in crop conditions, with Overberg and Swartland regions in good shape, whilst the opposite is true in the southern Cape.
• Looking ahead, the weather forecast for this week promises some levels of improvement, with prospects of between 16 and 30 millimetres of rainfall over the Westerns Cape province. This could help ease concerns of a potential deterioration in crop conditions, particularly in the southern Cape region.
• Be that as it may, the medium-term forecasts are quite positive. The South African Weather Service forecasts a likelihood of above-normal rainfall over the western coastal regions of the country, which include the Western Cape province, during early spring (a period between August and October 2018).
• Other provinces are at the final stages of the planting process and could benefit from improved soil moisture following good summer rainfall in the 2017/18 season. It is also worth noting is that a share of the Free State, Limpopo and the Northern Cape province’s winter wheat crop is under irrigation, which means the provinces could have a better season as dam levels are over 70 percent full in these particular provinces (see Figure 1 below).

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