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 of avocados in South Africa is estimated to decrease marginally by 2 percent to 130,000 Metric Tons (MT) in the 2020/21 MY, based on the cyclical on-year and off-year nature...

South Africa is continuing to experiencing a positive trend in the area planted with summer rainfall field crops during the past two decades.

On February 1, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa partially lifted the ban on the domestic transportation and sale of alcohol beverages.

The South African food ingredients market was valued at R25.6 Billion (US$1.7 billion) in 2019, and is expected to reach R30 billion (US$2.0 billion) by 2024.