If I were to be asked to name one word, I used more extensively than any other this week, it would be – confidence. I participated at the Citrus Growers’ Association Summit held in Port Elizabeth on 13 March, and the South African Feedlot Association’s Cattlemen’s Annual Conference in Bloemfontein on 14 March.

In about a month’s time from now, South African farmers will start preparing soils for winter crops plantings in the Western Cape, as the 2019/20 production season approaches. Meanwhile, other winter crop growing areas such as the Northern Cape and Free State, amongst others, will commence with plantings around midyear.

After declining to the lowest level since 2009 in the last quarter of 2018, the Agbiz/IDC Agribusiness Confidence Index improved by 4 points in the first quarter of this year to 46. While the improvement in sentiment is a welcome development, the Index remains below the neutral 50-point mark, implying that agribusinesses are still downbeat about business conditions in South Africa.

If I were to be asked to name one word I used more extensively than any other this week, it would be confidence.

There is broad consensus that part of the reason why SA’s land reform programme has fallen short of expectation has been due, to some extent, to a lack of well-timed, co-ordinated and effective measures to support new farmers.

In the recent issue of Agrekon, which is an agricultural economics academic journal, some of the most renowned agricultural economics professors, namely Johann Kirsten, Philip Pardey, and Colin Thirtle wrote a moving memorial tribute of the late Dr Frikkie Liebenberg, who was working at the University of Pretoria in the last years of his life.

We rarely explore developments in Mozambique’s agricultural sector as the country is not a key contributor to Southern Africa’s staple foods production such as maize, sorghum and wheat. But the devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone Idai meant that Mozambique should not be overlooked this year due to possible food needs over the coming months.

March 2019 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provided further evidence that the world will have fairly large maize, soybean, and rice supplies in the 2018/19 season. Meanwhile, wheat production could decline from levels seen in the 2017/18 season.

Rising fuel and electricity prices and a weaker rand could feed into higher food inflation, but economists expect the uptick to be relatively moderate.

The March 2019 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has provided further evidence that the world will have fairly large maize, soybean, and rice supplies in the 2018/19 season. Meanwhile, wheat production could decline from levels seen in the 2017/18 season.
Image via
Image via Wandile Sihlobo
The USDA lifted its estimate for 2018/19 global maize production marginally from last month to 1.1 billion tonnes. This is 2% higher than the previous season. The increases are mainly in South America and the Black Sea region.

Moreover, the agency placed its 2018/19 global rice production at 501 million tonnes, up by a percentage point from the levels observed in January 2019, and the 2017/18 production season.

There could be some positive news ahead for weary consumers when it comes to food prices, with global trends having a positive impact on SA.

The countryside of the Western Cape will be awakened again by end of this month when farmers start to prepare the soils for winter crops plantings as the 2019/20 production season approaches.

An organisation that represents commercial farmers and agribusiness enterprises nationally has called for more research into the growing and trading of cannabis in SA and the rest of the world.

While it remains a challenge to get a clear picture of the scale of damage to maize fields in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe after Cyclone Idai, my back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest these countries will collectively have to import more than 1-million tonnes of maize in the 2019/2020 marketing year to meet their domestic needs.

As Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe continue to rebuild after devastating Cyclone Idai last month, we deemed it appropriate to revisit the maize imports story we published at the start of this month as more information about domestic supplies becomes available in some of the aforementioned countries.

Zimbabwean government will give priority to elderly white farmers when it starts with the compensation process. The government has set aside US$17.5 million in this year’s budget to make initial compensation.

When Emmerson Mnangagwa assumed office as president of Zimbabwe in late 2017, one of the immediate tasks he had was to rebuild an economy that had performed poorly for nearly two decades.

While South Africa’s headline food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation accelerated to 3.1% in March 2019 from 2.9% in the previous month, the food category remained unchanged at 2.3% for the third consecutive months

I am ending this week, not by highlighting an agricultural story that dominated the news headlines – as it is typically the case — but some encouraging developments for the South African beef industry.

It has been nearly two months since the Chinese authorities temporarily suspended South African wool imports because of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak earlier in the year.