Agricultural Market Viewpoint with Wandile Sihlobo

South Africa's agricultural exports to the Middle East, worth US$1.3 billion in 2025, or 8% of overall agricultural exports, are at risk from this crisis. Shipping costs are rising. Agricultural businesses that export to the Middle East will now be exploring whether other markets can absorb their products. South Africa's citrus, strawberry, and maize harvest seasons will soon begin across the country, and as the conflict in the Middle East drags on, trade interruptions will persist. While the conflict will impose major costs on businesses, South Africa must remain focused on its long-term agricultural export growth strategy, which targets the Middle East as a key market. In times of peace and reconstruction, this region would be a key agricultural export market. We believe there remains room to increase exports in peacetime. Wandile Sihlobo website

South Africa indeed transports much of its agriculture and food products by road. For example, 80% of South African staple grain products are transported by road. We see similar volumes in other commodities. Agricultural products are also processed in certain regions and then transported to various consumption points. This means that fuel price changes affect food prices through adjustments in distribution costs. Still, such fuel price changes in some products take a while to be passed through. Therefore, any sudden worry or urge to adjust prices is something to watch closely. There is still a lot we don’t know about this Middle Eastern war, including how long it will last. Indeed, all indications point to a potential notable increase in fuel prices this coming month. Still, it is probably fair to assume that we won’t see a sudden jump in most food products, as there are various adjustments the many role-players have to make and time lags. I typically don’t encourage unnecessary close monitoring of food price adjustments, but if we continue to see such headlines, it may be useful to pay attention to these things. We are already seeing worrying price increases in farm inputs in some regions of our country. Wandile Sihlobo website

South Africa may miss its maize export forecast of 2.4 million tonnes for the 2025-26 marketing year, which ends in April. The exports so far are at 1.7 million tonnes as of the first week of March 2026. Given a softer weekly export pace, it is unlikely that the country will see strong enough momentum in the remaining weeks of the current marketing year to reach the 2.4 million tonnes seasonal forecast for maize exports. The challenge is the softer global demand, not supply availability. I discuss this issue further in the podcast and its implications for the sector and maize users. Listen to the podcast for more. Wandile Sihlobo website

A day after we received robust agricultural GDP data, showing that the sector’s gross value added grew by 17.4% year-on-year in 2025, following a -8.4% year-on-year contraction in 2024, some may wonder why the sentiment indicators suggest a subdued mood. In data released on March 11, we learned that after rising for much of last year, the Agbiz/IDC Agribusiness Confidence Index (ACI) fell by 18 points in Q1 2026 to 49, the lowest level since Q3 2024. The current ACI level of 49 is just under the 50-neutral mark, suggesting that South African agribusinesses are becoming somewhat pessimistic about business conditions in the country. But this story requires some context; we provide it in this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

We are watching the worrying developments in the Middle East. The region is key to South Africa's agriculture, both for exports and for its influence on oil and gas prices. Listen to the podcast for our early impression. Wandile Sihlobo website

We are in another favourable agricultural season in South Africa, with favourable rains that enabled the farmers to plant and supported the grazing veld for the livestock industry. This builds on a better agricultural performance in 2025, a year of La Niña rains that supported the sector. The only significant risk at the moment is foot-and-mouth disease, which continues to weigh on South Africa’s cattle industry. The Department of Agriculture is undertaking a nationwide vaccination campaign against foot-and-mouth disease, and the success of this process remains vital to the sustainability of the sector. Listen to the podcast for more information. Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

After falling for two consecutive quarters, the Agbiz/IDC Agribusiness Confidence Index (ACI) increased by 5 points to 67 in Q4 2025. Favourable weather conditions, strong exports throughout the year on the back of ample grains, oilseeds, and horticulture harvests, as well as better port efficiencies, are among the key drivers of optimism in the sector. We suspect that the announcement of nationwide vaccination of cattle against foot-and-mouth disease also contributed to the upbeat mood, as the disease is a national challenge that, for some time, seemed out of control. The current ACI level of 67 is well above the 50-neutral mark, suggesting that South African agribusinesses are generally optimistic about business conditions in the country. This survey was conducted in the last week of November and covered agribusinesses operating across various agricultural subsectors nationwide. Listen to the full podcast for more information. Wandile Sihlobo website

We continue to receive encouraging notes about the prospects of La Niña in the 2025-26 summer season. The La Niña-induced rains will help support field crops, horticulture, and grazing veld for livestock. The farmers are optimistic and plan to increase area plantings, primarily of field crops. One aspect of the agricultural sector that has posed a significant challenge is the livestock industry, which struggles with foot-and-mouth disease. But South Africa is embarking on vaccination nationwide. This will be a considerable undertaking to vaccinate over 12 million cattle (about 7.2 million are in the commercial herd). The better weather outlook, combined with the vaccination campaign, provides us optimism that we may transition from a “mixed recovery” in 2025 to a “better recovery” in 2026. We remain optimistic. Listen to the podcast more. Wandile Sihlobo website

About 720 million people continued to experience hunger in 2024, and 2.6 billion people were unable to afford healthy diets. It is this reality that compelled the G20 Leaders' Declaration in Johannesburg to shine a spotlight on global food insecurity challenges correctly. Countries can explore many interventions to resolve this challenge, from improving agricultural productivity to easing trade. Listen to the podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

Various regions of South Africa have started receiving the 2025-26 summer rains. The rains will help ensure that the agricultural season begins on time and that we have excellent production conditions. The farmers are relatively optimistic, having suggested that they intend to plant 4.5 million hectares of summer grains and oilseeds, a 1% increase from the 2024-25 season. Importantly, the favourable rains also help improve the grazing veld for livestock, and are beneficial to the horticulture industry. Listen to the podcast for more. Wandile Sihlobo website

The U.S. decision to modify its reciprocal tariffs and exempt some food products is a positive step towards easing agricultural trade friction, which is costly to both exporting countries and U.S. consumers. The exempted products include coffee and tea, fruit juices, cocoa, and spices, as well as avocados, bananas, coconuts, guavas, limes, oranges, mangoes, plantains, pineapples, various peppers and tomatoes, beef, and additional fertilisers. The U.S. government took this positive policy step in an effort to cushion U.S. consumers against higher prices resulting from the tariffs. In a way, this is a recognition that tariffs are a tax on consumers in importing countries, while also weighing on exporters. In our understanding, these products will no longer be covered under the Liberation Day Tariff levels, making access to the U.S. market much easier for various exporters. South Africa is an exporter of various agricultural products to the U.S., including citrus products, table grapes, macadamia nuts, wine, ostrich products, and ice cream, among others. It appears that oranges, macadamia nuts and fruit juices will benefit from the exemption.[1] The U.S. accounts for approximately 4% of South Africa’s agricultural exports, valued at U.S.$13.7 billion in 2024. In the second quarter of 2025, South African agricultural exporters took advantage of the temporary tariff pause and front-loaded their products. This resulted in a 26% year-over-year increase in South Africa’s agricultural exports to the U.S. in the second quarter, reaching U.S.$161 million. There remain concerns that going forward, the higher tariffs will weigh on agricultural product exports, particularly those not covered in these modified rates, such as table grapes, macadamia nuts, and wine, among others. South Africa is entering the table grape export season, and access to the U.S. market remains a challenge due to higher tariffs compared to South African competitors. Wandile Sihlobo website

The Karoo region of South Africa experiences intense weather conditions, with often extremely hot summers and bitterly cold winters. It is these extreme weather conditions that nurture the distinct vegetation of the region, which is a source of feed for the sheep industry there. The Karoo lamb has a unique and supreme taste due to the distinct vegetation. But there are times when extreme heat and dryness can cause worries about the vegetation, and there were certainly areas where farmers were starting to rely on feed because of dryness. But I was delighted to hear from various farmers in recent days that some areas are starting to receive rains, which if it continues, will help boost the grazing veld. Another aspect of the Karoo region, which many South Africans have yet to explore, is agritourism. I discuss more in the podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

The African government must do everything possible to assist farmers during the 2025-26 production season. In the past, when confronted with disasters and food shortages, we had relied on organisations such as the World Food Programme for assistance. This time around, the World Food Programme is no longer fit to assist if we run into challenges. Hence, thinking about the future, we have to do whatever we can to help farmers get out into the fields and till the land, so they can have an ample or decent harvest in the upcoming season and ensure household food security in the near term. There are also long-term policy considerations for reforming our agriculture, which we must seriously reflect on. I discuss more in the podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

South Africa’s agriculture continues to create job opportunities, and its long-term job creation prospects remain positive. If we look at the high-frequency data for a moment, the number of farm jobs in South Africa has increased slightly from the second quarter of 2025, by 2% to 920k in the third quarter. We see the quarterly improvements mainly in some field crops, horticulture, forestry, and in the production of organic fertiliser. The increase in jobs reflects the optimism generated by the abundant harvest in these subsectors, which we have highlighted on numerous occasions. The one subsector that remains under pressure is the livestock industry, mainly due to the foot-and-mouth disease. Notably, the jobs of 920k are far above the long-term average level of 799k jobs, signalling that while the sector faces challenges such as animal diseases, wage pressures in some industries and inept municipal service deliveries, among other issues, the employment conditions remain at encouraging levels. Wandile Sihlobo website

This is a busy period in South African farming. The summer crop farmers are tilling the land for the new season, table grape farmers are harvesting, and the winter crop farmers are harvesting. South Africa’s 2025-26 winter wheat season began at the start of October. But we are seeing that farmers have begun delivering the new season crop, which was planted from the start of May. In the first five weeks of this year, farmers have delivered about 425,190 tonnes of wheat to commercial silos. These are still early days, and the harvest is expected to gain momentum in the coming months. South Africa’s 2025-26 winter wheat harvest is forecast at 2.03 million tonnes, a 5% increase from the previous year. The annual improvement is boosted by the expected better harvest in the Northern Cape, Free State, Eastern Cape, and Limpopo. The Western Cape, which accounts for over half of South Africa’s winter wheat production, is expected to experience a mild decline in the harvest this year compared to the 2024-25 season due to unfavourable weather conditions in some parts of the province. A potential wheat harvest of 2.03 million tonnes implies that South Africa may need to import approximately 1.74 million tonnes in the 2025-26 season to meet our annual needs. These imports are expected to be down 5% from the 2024-25 season. The import activity is unlikely to pose a significant challenge, given the ample global wheat supplies available. Listen more to the linked audio. Wandile Sihlobo website

We must dispel the false narrative that South Africa’s farming sector is under siege. This sector has flourished since the dawn of democracy in 1994. We have seen its value more than double, and exports are expanding. We are now the only African country in the top 40 global agricultural exporters. If there were indeed an attack on the farming sector, we wouldn’t be seeing such success. Another danger we must not underestimate is the negative image the false narratives create. We are an export-oriented farming sector, and therefore, we must protect the image of this sector in the world market. Listen to the podcast for more information. Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

South Africa's 2024-25 summer grain and oilseeds production season was excellent. In its 9th production estimate, released on October 28, 2025, the Crop Estimate Committee raised South Africa's 2024-25 production by 1% from the September estimate to 20.08 million tonnes. This figure comprises maize, soybean, sunflower seed, groundnuts, sorghum, and dry beans. The upward revision was mainly on maize, while other production estimates remained unchanged from the September figure. The current estimate for the 2024-25 summer grain and oilseed season is up 30% from the previous season. There is an annual uptick in all the crops, mainly supported by favourable summer rains and the decent area plantings. The base effects also help, as we struggled with a drought last year that weighed on the harvest. This ample crop will likely continue to put downward pressure on prices, which bodes well for a moderating path of consumer food price inflation. Listen to the podcast for more information. Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

We are in a period of relatively high activity in South Africa’s agriculture. Farmers across the country are tilling the land to mark the start of the 2025-26 summer crop season. We also see some activity in the vegetable fields as farmers prepare for the season ahead. The outlook is positive as we are in a La Niña period. There is also increased activity in the winter crop-growing regions of the country, with farmers beginning harvest of the 2025-26 crop, which was planted in May 2025. We may also soon see an uptick in the export activity of some fruits. Overall, the season for all these commodities is looking positive, promising better yields. Listen to the podcast for more information. Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

In the week of September 26 and October 3, 2025, Zimbabwe imported 34,093 tonnes of maize from South Africa. These imports are at a time when Zimbabwe has previously announced a ban on maize imports, an effort that was set to provide the local producers space to sell their produce to the domestic users. What then is happening here? Listen to the podcast for more information. Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

We are ending South Africa's 2024-25 summer grains and oilseed production season on an optimistic note. We now have eight production estimates with two more to follow, which are unlikely to change the positive picture we have. The data released at the end of September 2025 by the Crop Estimates Committee show an increase in South Africa's 2024-25 summer grains and oilseed harvest estimate, up by 2% from the August 2025 estimate to an expected 19.94 million tonnes (a 28% year-on-year increase). There is an annual uptick in all the crops, mainly supported by favourable summer rains and the decent area plantings. The base effects also help, as we struggled with a drought last year that weighed on the harvest. This ample crop will likely continue to put downward pressure on prices, which bodes well for a moderating path of consumer food price inflation. In a few weeks, the focus will be on the 2025-26 season, which also promises to be favourable, with prospects of La Niña rains. Listen to the podcast for more information. Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website