Browse Data and Analysis

The enormous restraint on electricity generation and resulting power outages, locally known as load shedding, is emerging as a significant threat to South African agriculture. The cumulative hours of load shedding in the first seven months of 2022 already exceeds the annual record set in 2021.

The sharp upsurge in the cost of farming inputs for corn farmers in South Africa intensified the risk of production in a weather dependent industry, despite record-high commodity prices. As a result, Post forecasts that South Africa’s corn area will stay flat in marketing year 2022/23. However, South Africa should maintain its status as a net exporter of corn under normal weather conditions.

The South African retail food sector is well-developed and continues to expand into other African countries. In 2021, South African retail food sales totaled $40 billion, a 0.2 percent increase from 2020 as the South African economy began to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The production and export of soft citrus, lemons and limes is expected to continue its strong growth in the 2018/19 MY, based on the increase in area planted, high level of new-plantings....

Due to drought conditions, Zimbabwe’s corn crop for the 2019/20 MY is estimated to drop by 54 percent to 776,635 tons. In the 2018/19 MY Zimbabwe farmers produced 1.7 million tons of corn....

Sorghum production in South Africa decreased dramatically over the past decade as producers preferred to plant more profitable crops like corn and oilseeds.

Despite facing numerous challenges in the South African market, the United States filled the quota for bone-in chicken meat exports to South Africa for the second consecutive quota year....