South Africa: Grain and Feed Update
The corn crop across South Africa is in fairly good condition. Favorable forecasts for follow-up rains over the next three weeks could further improve the crop. Hence, post kept its estimate for South Africa’s total corn crop for the 2016/17 MY, including production from the subsistence farming sector, unchanged at 12.8 million tons. This means the 2016/17 MY corn crop could be almost 60 percent higher than the drought-reduced estimated corn crop of 8.0 million tons of the 2015/16 MY. Hence, South Africa should return to being a net exporter of corn in the 2016/17MY. All Genetically Engineered corn events that caused asynchrony with the United States were approved at the end of 2016. Imported grain from the United States can now make a difference in the food security status in southern Africa.
