March 17, 2003

Corn Production Time Series Increased for South Africa  

South Africa’s 2002/03 corn production is forecast at 9.0 million tons, up 1.0 million or 12 percent from last month, but down 0.7 million or 7 percent from last year’s crop. This month’s production forecast was not increased due to favorable weather, but was increased by approximately 0.5 million tons due to baseline adjustments to the historical time series for the past four years and a 200,000-hectare increase in the area estimate (Figure 1 and Table 1).  Area was increased because November planting losses were recovered by replanted fields in December.

Figure 1.  Production Estimates Compared to Deliverables

USDA’s production time series for South Africa was adjusted for the past four years because the preliminary estimates given by the National Crop Estimates Committee (NCEC) have been consistently lower than reported deliveries to silos and millers (Figure 1).  It should be noted that the newly adjusted USDA estimates (Table 1) agree more closely with preliminary estimates listed by the South Africa’s National Department of Agriculture (NDA) which are greater than deliverables and also account for farm retentions of grain.  Future production estimates made by FAS will give great weight to  deliverables and farm retentions as later reported by the NDA, and  may be  higher than preliminary production estimates made prior to this update. 

Historical yield estimates were affected by changes made to the production series (Table 1). This month's forecast yield of 2.57 tons/ha and planted area of 3.5 million hectares are approximately equal to the 5-year averages.   Read a current update from February 2003 by a FAS crop assessment team.     
 

Table 1.  Adjusted USDA Database for South Africa

For more information, contact Curt Reynolds
with the Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division, at Curt.Reynolds@fas.usda.gov or (202) 690-0134.