South Africa should regain its status as a net exporter of maize from May 1 this year. This is not only good news for local maize producers but for poultry and livestock producers as well as their feed costs will be significantly reduced.
This season’s maize harvest is expected to be 87% bigger than the 2016 crop, which was hit by a crippling drought, according to the latest Grain South Africa production estimate report.
The report, released yesterday (Tuesday), predicts that the 2017 harvest is likely to reach 14.53 million tonnes of maize – the second biggest crop on record.
Wandile Sihlobo, head of economic and agribusiness research at Agbiz, points out that when the country imports maize, it is at the mercy of currency volatility – which not only sends food inflation rates skyrocketing but poultry and livestock feed.
The high cost of feed is one of the factors that has added to the cost of poultry production, according to a recent report by the parliamentary Select Committee on Trade and International Relations, making the sector vulnerable to cheaper imports from the United States and the European Union.
