South Africa’s maize harvest process is largely depended on the weather

• The progress of South Africa’s harvest process is largely depended on the weather. The past few weeks continued with minimal interruptions due to favourable weather conditions, but the forecast for the next eight days shows a possibility of rainfall over the maize-belt which could subsequently slow the harvest process, particularly in the Free State and North West provinces.
• What is more concerning is that the expected rainfall could be over 25 millimetres, which increase the chances of quality damage of crops. These showers are, however, temporary, as this is not a rainfall season in summer crop areas. The weather forecast for the week of 25 July 2018 shows clear skies over most parts of the maize-belt, with the exception of the southern parts of the Free State province. We will closely monitor the developments over the next couple of days.
• As set out in our previous notes, this season’s maize harvest activity is behind normal schedule due to the late start of planting activity which was caused by unfavourable weather conditions, particularly in the central and western parts of the country. On 29 June 2018, about 31 percent of the expected harvest of 13.2 million tonnes had already been delivered to commercial silos.
• An update for the week of 06 July 2018 will be released at tomorrow. The data will most likely show an uptick in activity given that weather conditions were fairly favourable in the past couple of weeks over maize producing regions of the country.
• Aside from that, at midday SAGIS will release South Africa’s grain trade data for the week of 06 July 2018. The exports for the last week of June were disappointing, amounted to 63 412 tonnes of maize, down by 16 percent from the week of 22 June 2018.

Click HERE to read the full report by Wandile Sihlobo