South African Agricultural Market Viewpoint 1 April 2019

• While it remains a challenge to get a clear picture of the scale of damage in maize fields in Mozambique and Zimbabwe after Cyclone Idai, we suspect that these countries will collectively have to import over a million tonnes of maize in the 2019/20 marketing year in order to fulfil the domestic needs.
• Given that the key maize-producing countries in Southern Africa – Zambia and South Africa – are expecting a poor harvest in 2018/19 production season, maize supplies will be tight in the region the 2019/20 marketing year, and this could present upward pressures on prices.
• But there will not be a disaster. There are large maize supplies in the global market which the region can draw from, although it is largely yellow maize. The price will, however, be an issue partly due to strong global demand.
• Aside from summer grains, a few weeks back we signalled a possibility of favourable weather conditions over the south-western parts of South Africa, which would ultimately benefit winter crops. On 28 March 2019, the local weather bureau reaffirmed its view that between April and July 2019, the south-western parts of South Africa could receive above-normal rainfall.

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