July 8, 2004

 

 

South Africa's 2004/05 Corn Crop Seen At 8.1 Million MT

 

South Africa's MY 2004/05 corn crop is estimated at 8.1 million metric tons compared to the 9.7 million tons produced in the previous season, according to information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service web site, dated July 2 and released Wednesday.

 

SUMMARY

 

South Africa's 2003 corn crop (2003 indicating the year of planting) is currently officially estimated at 8.1 million tons, 1.125 million tons more than the initial estimate made in February. The 16% increase is indicative of the much more favorable conditions and widespread rainfall over the second half of the season. Harvesting is in progress and indications are that the estimate has stabilized. South African supplies will be adequate for local needs but with the free market imports of especially yellow corn and exports of mainly white will continue.

 

At this stage it is expected that wheat plantings will increase to 886,000 hectares this year after only 748,000 hectares were planted in 2003, the report said. This could lead to a crop in excess of 2 million tons compared to the 1.5 million tons produced last year. At this stage there is some concern about late rains in the Western Cape. A high level of imports is expected to continue.

 

CORN

 

Production

 

The fifth official estimate of South Africa's 2003 corn crop was released on June 21, 2004 (2003 referring to the year of planting). The total crop is estimated at about 8.1 million tons, 16% less than the 9.7 million 2002 crop, mainly due to a decline in area planted. In spite of a late start to the rainy season, and a December/January dry spell, the expected average yield increased by 2.3% compared to the previous season. Since the first estimate was made on Feb. 19, prospects improved considerably and the fifth estimate shows an increase of 1,125,000 tons, or 16% from the initial estimate.

 

The most significant feature of the latest estimate is that the average yield of the commercial crop, in spite of the difficult growing conditions, decreased by only 1.4% compared to the previous season, the report said. The yield of the yellow corn crop is actually expected to surpass the yield attained in 2002.

 

The main reason for the smaller crop was the 540,000-hectare, 17.7%, decrease in the area planted in response to market and weather factors. It can be argued that the cutback in area planted mainly consisted of low potential soils resulting in a proportional increase in the area of high potential soil planted. This facilitated the increase in yield. Farmers were probably also able to optimize input use as a result of the smaller area.

 

Also, the role of irrigation cannot be ignored. In the Northern Cape, where only irrigated production is possible, 45,500 hectares were planted this year and this is expected to produce 455,000 tons at 10 tons per hectare. Although the area planted under irrigation declined in 2003 due to the dry start to the season, and some water sources ran dry during the season, it is estimated that about 120,000 hectares were planted under full or supplemental irrigation, probably producing 1.2 million tons of the total. As harvesting continues the crop size is not expected to increase much further.

 

Source: USDA