South Africa's agriculture exports reached a new record of US$13,7 billion in 2024, up 3% from the previous year. This reflects both an increase in the volume of agricultural exports and higher prices of some products.

The top exported products by value include citrus, grapes, maize, apples and pears, wine, nuts, fruit juices, sugar, berries, dates, pineapples, avocados, wool, apricots and peaches, ciders, and beef, amongst other products.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

We have been saying for some time that this will likely be a recovery year for South Africa’s agriculture following a harsh mid-summer drought in the 2023-24 season that weighed on grains and oilseeds harvest.

The first production estimates for 2024-25 summer grains and oilseeds point to the possibility of a better harvest. The Crop Estimates Committee forecasts the 2024-25 overall summer grains and oilseeds harvest at 17,2 million tonnes, up 11% from the previous season. This comprises maize, sunflower seed, soybeans, groundnuts, sorghum and dry beans.

The expected yield improvements primarily back better harvest prospects. The overall area planting is 4,4 million hectares, roughly unchanged from the last season. Provided this is a first production estimate and possibly does not fully account for the gains of the recent rains, we could see further upside revision in the coming months. After all, there are nine more estimates to follow monthly.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

South Africa's agriculture is on its recovery path, supported by favourable rainfall and progress in controlling the spread of animal diseases, amongst other contributing factors. The previous 2023-24 production season was challenging, characterised by the mid-summer drought and animal diseases that added immense pressure to the sector.

The jobs data for the fourth quarter of 2024 illustrate the difficulty the sector experienced, although much milder than we anticipated. For example, primary agriculture employment fell by 1% from the third quarter to 924k jobs in the last quarter of 2024. The field crops, game and hunting, and forestry are the subsectors that registered notable losses.

However, from an annual perspective, the employment was roughly unchanged from the last quarter of 2023. Positively, the primary agricultural employment of 924k people is well above the long-term jobs of 799k.

Given the resilience of recent quarters' job performance, it is possible that we may see a recovery in employment conditions in 2025, assuming that there aren't pressing trade-related challenges that will weigh on the sector's profitability in the near term. The mild increase in the minimum wage this year, while challenging for some commodities and adding to already higher input cost pressures, may also not be a major hindrance.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

Since I have been writing about the higher maize prices and possible upside risks to consumer food price inflation, I thought it is important to highlight that we have been observing a price retreat since last week.

When the market closed today, February 14, 2025, South Africa's white maize spot price was R5 559 per tonne, well below the R6 700 per tonne mark we saw at the start of January 2025. However, it is still up 30% from a year ago.

The yellow maize price is R4 940 per tonne, down from R5 110 per tonne at the start of January 2025. Still, this was up by roughly 30% from the same period in 2024.

The tight maize supplies underpinned the generally high prices over the past few months. South Africa was hard hit by the mid-summer drought in the 2023-24 season, leading to a 21% decline in maize production to 12,9 million tonnes.

The Southern Africa region was also hit hard, with Zimbabwe losing 60% of its maize crop, Zambia's maize harvest down 50%, and significant crop losses across the region. This led to a strong demand for maize, and South Africa remained one of the significant maize suppliers to Southern Africa.

South Africa's poor maize harvest of 12.9 million tonnes was supplemented by better stocks of about 2.4 million tonnes, enabling the country to remain a net exporter.

Between May 2024 and the end of January 2025, South Africa exported 1.80 million tonnes out of the expected 1.90 million tonnes (down from 3.44 million tonnes in the 2023-24 marketing year because of the mid-summer drought).

In essence, the primary price drivers in recent months were the poor domestic maize harvest of the 2023-24 season, strong regional demand for maize, and uncertainty about the new 24-25 season outlook.

So, what changed in these past few weeks?

The focus is shifting to the new 2024-25 season, and the crop is generally in good condition across South Africa.

Broadly, the farmers have managed to plant well in most regions, although the timing of the planting seems to differ vastly in some areas, partly because of the erratic rains at the start of the season. The crop conditions are favourable.

South Africa's 2024-25 maize preliminary plantings were 2.64 million hectares, up 0.4% year over year (y/y). White maize was 1.59 million hectares (up 3% y/y), and yellow maize was 1,05 million hectares (down 3% y/y).

Admittedly, while the crop fields are visibly green and in good condition, the heat of November to early December 2024 strained some regions.

While the crop has recovered from the recent rains in such areas, it is not in its usual health state for this season, especially in the various small towns in the eastern Free State. We suspect that the North West, the western regions of Mpumalanga and the northern parts of Limpopo may have similar experiences. These areas saw erratic and late rains.

Still, the overall view of the maize crop and the general agricultural conditions is far better than that of the past season.

Therefore, optimism about the season ahead and favourable rainfall forecasts through March are the key drivers of the market's price decline. We also see some selling pressure, which further moderates this price decline.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

There has been an emerging narrative that South Africa's agriculture has not

performed well recently.

Inept municipalities, poor road infrastructure, stock theft, and port inefficiencies all

contribute to this narrative of failure and despair. Stories of the failings of land reform

farms also add to this sentiment of regression in agricultural progress.

The government's failings over the past decade and the lack of implementation of

many development policies also catalysed this narrative.

But this narrative is far from the reality of the South African farming sector.

Regardless of how experts feel about the state's capacity and the government's

policy stance since the dawn of democracy, the one undeniable fact is that the sector

has grown tremendously – and certainly not failing.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli. Wandile Sihlobo website

While the start of South Africa's 2024-25 crop season was tricky, there remains optimism that farmers likely planted more area than the previous season.

The preliminary plantings data released by the Crop Estimates Committee this afternoon shows that South African farmers likely planted 4,45 million hectares of summer grains and oilseeds in the 2024-25 season, up mildly by 0,3% from the previous season.

Some of these plantings likely happen outside the typical optimal window because of some regions' unfavourable weather conditions at the start of the season. In such areas, there will be a need for better rains through to March, when the crops will likely pollinate.

Encouragingly, the La Niña prospects suggest we may receive favourable rains during this period. This supports the view that the 2024-25 season could be a recovery period for South Africa's agriculture. Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

A friend recently sent me a Bloomberg article about China's efforts to diversify agricultural imports. The idea is to lessen the reliance on the US in anticipation of trade friction under the Trump administration.

Central and South Americans seem to be on the way to becoming the major winners. They have a surplus of agricultural products that China imports, such as grains, oilseeds, red meat, wine, and nuts. The African continent has not benefitted much.

I have recently discussed President Trump's trade policy's possible impact on agriculture and how China retaliated against his administration's tariffs in 2018. The Chinese retaliation hurt the US soybean, maize, and pork farmers at the time.

What we can expect in the coming months will depend on whether President Trump proceeds with the higher tariffs on China, he promised in his recent speeches.

What is clear now is that South America, like in 2018, may be amongst the winners as China searches for new sources of agricultural products.

However, South Africa should also position itself among the key suppliers of agricultural products to China in addition to its current export activity.

I sometimes doubt if South Africans appreciate enough how big China is in global agricultural trade; thus, we keep discussing it. China is a dominant player in the export and import of agricultural products.

In 2023, China was a leading agricultural importer, accounting for 11% of global agricultural imports, which totaled over US$200 billion. The US, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, France, and Japan trailed China.

Similarly, China played a notable role in exports. In 2023, it was the fifth-largest agricultural exporter in the world. The leading countries ahead of China were the US, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Few African countries benefit from these imports due to low agricultural productivity in Africa. Most don't have volumes to export.

The leading suppliers of agricultural products to China are Brazil, the US, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Canada, Vietnam, France, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Ukraine, the Netherlands, and Malaysia.

The only African country in China's top 30 agricultural suppliers is South Africa, which ranked 28 in 2023. Still, South Africa remains a negligible player in the Chinese agricultural market, accounting for a mere 0.4% (US$979 million) of China's agricultural imports of US$218 billion in 2023.

Sudan and Zimbabwe are other African agricultural suppliers to China, ranked 33 and 34, respectively.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

Whenever I see challenges within South Africa's agriculture, Zimbabwe is the other country I think of as their challenges are often worse. Notably, South Africa typically has to shoulder Zimbabwe when there are challenges, specifically in staple grain production.

Consider the 2023-24 production year, when Zimbabwe had a challenging season due to the mid-summer drought that affected Southern Africa. Zimbabwe's maize harvest fell nearly 60% to around 635 000 tonnes, the lowest since the 2015-16 production season when the country experienced a drought.

Although a significant factor, the drought is not the only reason for the fall in Zimbabwe's maize harvest. The decline in fertilizer usage also contributed to poor yields. While fertilizer prices are down from the previous year, they remain well above the pre-COVID-19 levels, thus adding financial strain on farmers. Fertilizer makes up roughly a third of grain farmers' input costs.

This significant decline in Zimbabwe's maize production led to a sharp increase in imports, and South Africa played an important role in supplying maize to Zimbabwe (at market prices).

To understand how much maize Zimbabwe needs to import, consider its annual consumption of about two million tonnes. Therefore, with a harvest of 635 000 tonnes, the country needs at least a million tonnes in the 2024-25 marketing year, which ends in April 2025, to meet domestic needs (the 2024-25 marketing year corresponds with the 2023-24 production season).

Of course, this is a significant increase from Zimbabwe's maize imports of 637 327 tonnes in the 2023-24 marketing year, all from South Africa.

Between May 2024 and the first week of January 2025, South Africa exported 907 318 tonnes of maize to Zimbabwe. This is about 57% of South Africa's total maize exports to the world market during this period.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries, Sam Mkokeli and Amanda Murimba produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

Whenever one posts on social media about the challenges in the maize industry, I often see responses from people arguing that South Africans should consume more sorghum. They correctly highlight the nutritious value of the crop and its resilience in challenging climatic conditions.

But with all these benefits, the sorghum industry has not taken off. The challenge is not that farmers refuse to plant it. It is due to weak demand for it – consumers are just not buying sorghum products in a way they do with other staple grains.

The issue of weak demand partly gave farmers hope that the use of sorghum in biofuels would provide a much-needed market for farmers. But this venture also did not take off. Thus, sorghum production has continued to decline in South Africa.

South African farmers planted 42 100 hectares of sorghum in the 2023-24 production season, down 75% from the area we planted in 1990-91. The production was 95 830 tonnes in 2023-24, down by 68% from 1990-91.

This is a disappointing picture, and with the promise of the biofuel industry remaining bleak, we may continue to see small plantings.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries, Sam Mkokeli and Amanda Murimba produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

We can view 2024 in South Africa's agriculture as a "mixed" year. Indeed, the GDP figures will show a sharp contraction in South Africa's agricultural fortunes in 2024. But a deep dive will illuminate a more nuanced picture of mixed performance. For example, the field crops and livestock subsectors had their fair share of challenges, while the horticulture subsector had a relatively better year.

First, the mid-summer drought led to a 23% decline in South Africa's 2023-24 summer grains and oilseeds to 15,40 million tonnes. Second, animal disease continued to be a major challenge for farmers. This is understandable because we have had various cases of foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, African swine fever in pigs, and avian influenza in poultry over the past three years.

Third, there were also positive developments in South Africa's agriculture this year. One such positive development, which is not necessarily agriculture-specific, is the improvement in electricity supply. This positively contributed to the sector and partly to the robust horticulture production. For example, when one considers the dependence of South Africa's agriculture on horticulture, it is always worth highlighting that all of South Africa's horticulture – fruits and vegetables depends on irrigation that needs an adequate power supply. In crucial field crops, roughly 20% of maize, 15% of soybean, 34% of sugarcane, and nearly half of wheat are produced under irrigation.

As we start 2025, the sector has renewed optimism regarding expected better rainfall and improvements in the animal disease control front. This year's focus should remain on the opening of export markets, improvement of the network industries, and improving municipality performance.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries, Sam Mkokeli, and Amanda Murimba produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website