April 24, 2013

South Africa's oilseed planting acreage rises 7%

South Africa is likely to have a 7% increase in the area planted with oilseeds later in 2013, to a record 1.14 million hectares, which could produce a historical high of 1.67 million tonnes of oilseeds.

The increase in total oilseed plantings is mainly driven by a 9% increase in soy plantings to 580,000 hectares.

A new soy crushing plant, with a capacity of 185,000 tonnes per annum, started to operate in 2012 and another three plants, with a combined crushing capacity of approximately 650,000 tonnes are expected to be added through 2013.

It is believed that farmers will react positively to this increased local demand for soy and consequently will plant more hectares to soy. It was also forecasts that sunflower seed and groundnut planted areas will increase only marginally to 510,000 hectares and 50,000 hectares, respectively.

The South African Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) released its first oilseeds production estimate for the 2012-13 marketing year (MY) on February 26, 2013. The CEC estimated the commercial oilseed crop at 1.6 million tonnes.

However, the CEC did their yield surveys before a mid-season drought hit the Northwest and Free State Provinces and harshly affected the summer crops.

The grain industry is in agreement that the CEC was overly-optimistic in the first estimate and that the committee will have to adjust the production estimates for summer crops significantly downwards at their subsequent meetings.

After taking the drought conditions in consideration, post estimates the commercial oilseed crop at 1.44 million tonnes for the 2012-13 MY, 16% more than the 1.24 million tonnes produced in the 2011-12 MY.