South Africa: Grain and Feed Update
Dry weather is overruling the lure of high corn prices and producers’ decisions to plant more corn in the 2015/16 MY. As a result, post lowered its previous forecast of total corn area to be planted in the 2015/16 MY, by six percent to 3.0 million hectares. Wheat imports in the 2015/16 MY is expected to decrease by five percent to 1.7 million tons, despite a 12 percent drop in production, as a weakening exchange rate, an increased wheat import tariff, and a sluggish economic growth outlook for South Africa, diminished any major demand growth forecast in wheat products. However, South Africa’s rice imports in the 2015/16 MY are expected to increase by about 10 percent to 1.1 million tons on increased demand, due to relatively high local wheat and corn prices.
