Hot, dry weather has caused irreversible
damage to some South African corn and oilseed crops and the next two weeks may
determine food prices in the coming year, a farmers’ association said,
according to Bloomberg.
An aerial survey of the northwest Free
State and the North West provinces was conducted on Thursday morning, Grain SA
said in a statement. While rain in the next week can at best lead to a “break
even” situation for farmers, it’s unlikely as very little precipitation is
forecast, it said.
South Africa is the continent’s largest
producer of corn. White and yellow varieties of the grain have surged to the
highest in at least 11 months in Johannesburg. Persistent dryness in key
growing areas may have “tragic” consequences for the farming industry, the
farmers’ group said last week.
“We have seen large areas where the damage
is already irreversible,” Jannie de Villiers, chief executive officer of Grain
SA, said in the statement.
“The summer grains are in a critical stage and the
next fourteen days will determine the fate of South African food prices over
the next 12 months.”
White corn in western areas will be among
crops most hurt, it said. The grain type, used as staple food for human
consumption, rallied 25 percent this month and climbed 4.7 percent on Thursday
amid extended daily trading limits on the South African Futures Exchange.
Yellow corn futures, used as animal feed, are at the highest in more than a
year.
There’s a less than 10 percent chance of a
surplus corn crop and many hectares of sunflowers have died without forming
flowers, Grain SA said. Some farmers in western regions couldn’t get crop
insurance because areas were deemed too risky, it said.
Read the article HERE.
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