• The recent World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides further evidence that the world will have fairly large maize, soybean, and rice supplies in the 2018/19 season. Meanwhile, wheat production could decline from levels seen in the 2017/18 season.
• For South Africa, the relevance of this is through a number of channels, with the most direct one being that the country is a net importer of rice and wheat. South Africa’s 2019 rice imports could amount to 1.1 million tonnes, up by 10% from 2018. Meanwhile, wheat imports could fall by 36% from the 2017/18 season to 1.4 million tonnes.
• Also, it is worth noting that after being a net importer for two consecutive seasons, South Africa could again be a net exporter of sorghum in the 2019/20 marketing year, which commences on 01 May 2019 (this corresponds with the 2018/19 production season).

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