He says while parts of Africa, especially the southern and the eastern parts of the continent, face the challenge of sourcing grains, other parts of the world are in better shape and could help offset the shortfall. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations’ (FAO) Global Grains Price Index clarifies this with an average of 158 points in September 2019, which is down by 4% on a year-on-year basis.

It has been driven by the large supplies of grains in the world market. The International Grains Council (IGC) estimates the 2019/20 global grains production could amount to an estimated 2.2 billion tonnes, which is 1% higher than the previous season. This is boosted by increased wheat and rice production, which have recovered from levels seen in the past years while overshadowing the decline in the maize and soybean harvest, which are also part of the global grain cluster.

According to him, an increase in production seemed like a pipe dream because of excessively wet weather conditions and delayed plantings in America at the start of the 2019/20 production season. In addition, when planting finally happened, there were fears of potentially poor yields. These tough production conditions resulted in a decline in global maize and soybean production, which is now estimated at 1.1 billion tonnes and 342 million tonnes, down by 3% and 6% from the 2018/19 season, respectively. He says the magnitude of a decline is, however, not as huge as initially feared.

The improved weather conditions over the past few months and the use of higher-yielding and short-period growing varieties of seeds are amongst the factors that lessened the impact of late plantings and wet conditions in American maize and soybean producing areas.

Here is Sihlobo…

See attached PODCAST

That was Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist, of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, only on Before Dawn.  

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