Crop Estimate Committee – Agri Limpopo

South African Agricultural Commodities Weekly Wrap

Arithmus — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 10:17:57 +0000

One key factor that shaped South Africa’s grain and oilseed price performance this week was the recovery of the rand against the US dollar. Amongst other factors, this led to notable losses on SAFEX white and yellow maize, and sunflower seed spot prices, with each down by 2 percent from last week. The wheat spot price was also down by a percentage point from last week.
Aside from price movements, the focus in the market has slightly shifted towards the 2018/19 summer crop production season which commenced this month in the eastern parts of the country.
Most weather agencies show a likelihood of above-normal rainfall between November 2018 and January 2019, with the possibility of an El Niño-induced drought later in summer. Next week, the Crop Estimate Committee will release the ‘intentions of farmers to plant’ data which should give an indication of the 2018/19 maize crop.
The SAFEX beef carcass market experienced a quiet week with prices unchanged from levels seen last week. In terms of the supply, the South African farmers slaughtered 211 951 head of cattle in August 2018, down by 11 percent from August 2017 due to the herd rebuilding process after a reduction during the 2015-16 drought.

Click HERE for the full report.

Sourced: Agbiz, Agribusiness research

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Today we will get a sense of SA 2018/19 summer crop planting intentions

Arithmus — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 08:04:09 +0000

The data calendar today is packed, but the most anticipated release is the ‘intentions of farmers’ to plant 2018/19 summer crops to be released by national Crop Estimate Committee in the afternoon. An analysts’ survey by Bloomberg shows that the area plantings could be lifted by 5 percent from the 2017/18 production season to 2.44 million hectares. About 1.37 million hectares could possibly be white maize, with 1.07 million hectares likely to be utilised for yellow maize production.
The planting process has begun in several areas and is set to gain momentum over the next couple of weeks. This is all due to improved soil moisture in the eastern and central regions of South Africa, and also prospects of widespread higher rainfall over the maize-belt within the next two weeks.
Also on the calendar today is the weekly grain trade data which is due for release at midday. South Africa exported 29 989 tonnes of maize in the week of 12 October 2018, down by 48 percent from the previous week. The leading buyer was Ghana, accounting for 67 percent of overall weekly exports. This placed South Africa’s 2018/19 maize exports at 1.4 million tonnes, which equates to 61 percent of the seasonal export forecast of 2.3 million tonnes. About 88 percent of the exports is yellow maize, with white maize accounting for 12 percent.

Click HERE for the full report.

Sourced: Agbiz, Agribusiness Research

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SA maize hectares could be revised down further in the coming months

Arithmus — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 13:40:32 +0000

Today the Crop Estimate Committee’s summer grains preliminary plantings data showed that the area planted to maize is 2.3 million hectares. About 1.3 million hectares is white maize, with 1.0 million hectares being yellow maize. This came as a surprise as we had projection of 1.98 million hectares. We suspect that the late plantings might have been more than anticipated following early January rainfall. While this a welcome development, it is important to stress that these are initial estimates, there could be a revision next month and our view still leans towards a possible downward adjustment.

The important question at the moment is, what size of maize crop will South Africa have in the 2018/19 production season? The estimates in the market currently vary between 10.4 and 12.0 million tonnes, which is plausible if one assumes the aforementioned area and average yields, although that is dependent on good rainfall which is still proving to be a challenge at the present moment in the western areas of the South African maize-belt.

Given that South Africa’s maize consumption is about 10.8 million tonnes a year, a harvest of at least 10.4 million tonnes or even as low as 8.0 million tonnes would still ensure sufficient supplies for the country, as there could be fairly large stocks of about 3.4 million tonnes at the beginning of the 2019/20 marketing year in May 2019. This is under the assumption that there could be minimal exports, which is yet to been seen as our neighbouring countries could experience a shortage. Essentially, today’s data does not change our food inflation outlook of a possible moderate uptick this year to an average of 5% despite the recent increase in maize prices (for more information on food inflation, see Consumers will feel the pinch … but not everywhere, 24 January 2019).

The other crop that came as a surprise was sunflower seed area plantings, at about 444 000 hectares down by 26% from the area planted in 2017/18 production year. Unlike the case of maize where we expected a decline in area planting, we had anticipated an uptick on sunflower seed following increased planting activity earlier this month. We foresee a possible upward adjustment when the Committee releases its revised estimates in February. Soybean plantings are estimated at 743 600 hectares, down by 6% from the previous season.

Click HERE for the full report.

Sourced: Agbiz, Agribusiness Research

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