South Africa’s 2019/20 winter crops marketing year ended this past week. The key data point most analysts observe are wheat imports, as the country imports about 51% of its annual wheat consumption.

The growth of South Africa’s agricultural fortunes and job creation will, in part, depend on the expansion of agricultural activities in the underutilised former homelands regions and farms that government acquired through the land reform process.

In the 2019/20 marketing year, Zimbabwe’s maize imports, specifically from South Africa didn’t gain much momentum until the start of 2020.

We are just over two weeks before the Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) releases data on South African farmers’ intentions to plant summer crops for the 2020/21 season.

Agriculture has, for a long time, been dominated by men, from leadership positions to primary workers, where only a third of the labour force are women.

One feature that has characterised global agricultural markets over the past few weeks is rising prices.

At the beginning of October, the department of public works and infrastructure published the Expropriation Bill in the Government Gazette along with an explanatory memorandum.

Major global agricultural exporting countries are approaching the current Middle East crisis differently than they did in other recent crises.

South Africa’s 2020 large agricultural output, coupled with higher commodity prices which were precipitated by the weaker domestic currency, coupled with growing global demand improved farmers’ finances somewhat.

Agriculture, land reform & rural development minister Thoko Didiza’s announcement that 700,000ha of agricultural land will be released for distribution is a positive step for agricultural expansion and inclusive growth.

 The sentiment about the 2020/21 global grains and oilseeds production prospects is changing from a once optimistic one to potential downward revisions of the harvest.

It is not my usual practice to revisit the subject of a previous column. But in this instance I am compelled to do so because of the fast-changing global agricultural outlook and its implications for prices.

The good news keeps pouring in for SA’s agricultural sector, at least from a production perspective.

In the 2019/20 marketing year, Zimbabwe’s maize imports, specifically from South Africa didn’t gain much momentum until the start of 2020.

The most crucial time for SA’s summer crop and some horticulture products, and by extension the livestock sector, is between October and February each year.

On 10 November 2020, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology reaffirmed its forecast of a La Niña occurrence from this year until at least February 2021.

 The combination of a large harvest, joint efforts between government and private sector to keep agriculture operational since the outset of the lockdown, and long-term efforts of export market development, continue to pay off for the domestic agricultural sector.

The combination of a large harvest, joint efforts between the government and the private sector to keep agriculture operational since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown, and long-term export market development efforts continue to pay off for SA’s agricultural sector.

My intention in this blog post is to briefly discuss South Africa’s food price inflation data for October 2020, which showed a sharp increase to a level last seen in August 2017.

These products will continue to support SA’s agricultural exports in the final quarter of 2020.