While South Africa’s maize production is down 23% from the last season because of the tough mid-summer drought to an expected harvest of 12,72 million tonnes, we continue to export maize to the Southern African region. The large opening stocks from the previous season have helped to boost our supplies, enabling the exports.
For example, in the week of December 6, South Africa exported 57k tonnes of maize. Of this volume, 57% was exported to Zimbabwe, 11% to Namibia, 10% to Eswatini, and the balance to the neighbouring African countries.
This puts South Africa’s total maize exports in the 2024-25 marketing year at 1,42 million tonnes out of the expected 1,90 million tonnes (down from 3,44 million tonnes in the 2023-24 marketing year because of the mid-summer drought).
Moreover, while South Africa will likely remain the net exporter of maize in the 2024-25 marketing year, the coastal regions will import small volumes of yellow maize for animal feed because of price advantage.
We have recently seen the imports of yellow maize from Argentina and Brazil through Cape Town. South Africa’s 2024-25 maize imports currently stand at 353k tonnes.
The 2024-25 marketing year started on May 1 2024, and will end by April 2025.