May 6, 2009

South Africa, the biggest corn grower on the continent, may export less of the grain this year as higher input costs cripple plantings.

Acciording to Thys Grobbelaar, an analyst at Klerksdorp-based Senwes Ltd., white and yellow corn shipments combined may drop to about 1.5 million tonnes from 2.16 million tonnes in the marketing year ended May 1. Senwes stores and sells corn.

South Africa's corn crop may drop 12 percent to 11.2 million tonnes this year due to scarcer plantings, the government said Feb. 24. Farmers have harvested 12.7 million tonnes last year, the biggest crop in 26 years.

That boosted white corn exports almost fivefold to 1.89 million tonnes in the 12 months through May 1, from 396,832 tonnes a year earlier, South African Grain Information Service, or Sagis, said on its Web site. Yellow corn exports climbed almost fourfold to 266,066 tonnes from 72,227 tonnes a year earlier.

Andrew Fletcher, a South African Futures Exchange trader at Unigrain Ltd., said exports will be lower due to lesser supply nevertheless, there will be fewer imports.

Yellow corn imports fell about 98 percent to 27,432 tonnes in the marketing year to May 1, from a year earlier, Sagis said.

South Africa will probably have no corn imports this year, Andre Smit, a trader at Bester Feed & Grain Exchange Ltd., said. The country no longer suffers from transport constraints that hurt distribution and necessitated imports last year.