March 28, 2008

South Africa increases corn output forecast to 10.7 million tonnes

South Africa has increased its corn output forecast for 2007/2008 by 1.5 percent to 10.7 million tonnes, 34 percent higher than last year's 7.1 million tonnes, according to official data released on Thursday.

The crop would consist of 6.4 million tonnes of white corn and 4.3 million tonnes of yellow corn. The crop would be planted on 2.8 million hectares of land compared to the initial estimation of 2.7 million hectares.

The reason behind the forecast increase is due to the good weather throughout the season, according to Ellen Matsei, a CEC Committee member.

"The crop could have been higher, but February was not a good month for crops because the yields in the North West were affected by dryness during the month," she said.