In regular seasons a sizeable domestic maize harvest would ordinarily lead to a decline in prices. But SA’s 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 maize production seasons have not been ordinary.

The South African agricultural sector has had a good start to 2021, with favourable rainfall supporting crop yields and grazing veld for the livestock industry. This is a second consecutive season of strong performance for the sector after 2020 also saw bumper harvests on various crops and subsequently the second-largest export earnings on record of US$10,2 billion.

It sometimes feels like there is little more to discuss regarding South Africa's consumer food price inflation.

Tuesday’s GDP data for the first quarter which shows that SA’s agricultural output unexpectedly contracted by 3.2% quarter on quarter on a seasonally adjusted and annualised basis should not be of lasting concern.

 Farming and agribusiness play a crucial role in sustaining local economies and small towns. There is a lot of evidence of this in the literature and in the popular media.

The current growth momentum in South Africa's agricultural sector, which we have written about several times over the past few weeks, is not just a development of the past two seasons.

 Rising food prices continue to dominate the headlines, domestically and globally.

The explanation for this phenomenon ranges from dryness in parts of South America in the past few months, which affected the crop that the region is currently harvesting, to other weather-related concerns in Europe and North America, where plantings for the new season of 2021/22 are at completion stages. But more fundamentally, the two critical issues adding upward pressure on global grains prices are the lower stocks and expectations of increased grain usage in the US renewable energy industry. 

Amid an abundant harvest, high agricultural commodity prices have been an unexpected windfall for SA farmers, particularly grain and oilseed growers.

When South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, addressed the nation on July 12 amid violence and destruction of property in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, he warned of several risks if the situation was not resolved swiftly. One of them was food security.

In a typical summer season, where there are favourable weather conditions, South African farmers plough roughly four million hectares for summer grains and oilseeds.

This is understandable as the public fear that the looting and vandalism have destroyed some food distribution centers, retailers and caused blockages in key logistics corridors.

Amid an abundant harvest, high agricultural commodity prices have been an ironic windfall for South African farmers, particularly the grain and oilseed growers.

 We are yet to fully understand the impact and financial cost of the devastation from the recent incidents of unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng in the agricultural sector.

If the questions I frequently receive through various media platforms and e-mail are anything to go by, I would say concerns about rising food price inflation still linger.

In South Africa, a water-scarce country, groundwater is a vital supply for small towns and commercial farming.

The government approved a women empowerment policy in 2020 proposing that about 50% of the allocation of agricultural farming land under the redistribution programme should be for women, 40% for youth, and 10% for people living with disabilities.

South Africa’s agricultural sector is export-orientated. Nearly half of the annual produce, in value terms, is exported in regular and good seasons.

 While South Africa is traditionally a net exporter of agricultural products, wheat is the second most valuable imported food product after rice.

The effectiveness of government policy and programmes depends on the credibility that various role players place on such programmes and the government’s ability to implement them