As set out in our previous note, the Crop Estimate Committee left its final forecast for South Africa’s 2017/18 soybean production unchanged from last month at 1.55 million tonnes. This is 18 percent higher than the previous season due to an expansion in area planted, as well as fairly higher yields.

Nothing can stand in the way of good news, especially if the good news is “food”. I am currently in Somerset West, Western Cape attending an annual conference of the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa and had planned to write a brief piece about a few aspects I picked up from the research papers presented here today.

The area planted estimate and final production forecast of summer crops for the 2018 production season was recently released by the National Crop Estimates Committee.

WHILE Prime Minister Scott Morrison is praying for rain to help Australia’s drought-stricken farmers, South Africa has a different idea to tackle its water scarcity — and it sounds almost as far-fetched. 

This week we have a series of domestic data releases. Yesterday SAGIS released its monthly figures, today the Crop Estimate Committee will publish its final production forecasts for 2017/18 sunflower seed crop and other summer crops, and producer deliveries data are due tomorrow.

While agriculture continues to be amongst the sectors being discussed as having a potential to ignite growth and create jobs in South Africa, the government spending to the sector as a share of overall government expenditure is nowhere close to the olden days.