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He says the role of the South African and Zambian maize industries in the southern and eastern African regions will remain significant in the 2020/21 marketing year, ending in April 2021. Within the Southern Africa region, the recent data released by Zimbabwe’s ministry of lands and agriculture placed its 2019/20 maize harvest at 907 628 tonnes. This is an increase of 17% from the previous season, but it is still  below Zimbabwe’s 10-year average maize production of 1.1 million tonnes and annual domestic consumption needs of between 1.9 and 2.0 million tonnes. 

Meanwhile, in the eastern African region, the International Grains Council forecasts that Kenya’s 2019/20 maize harvest could stand at 3.4 million tonnes. This is roughly unchanged from the previous season, although there had been good rains over the past few weeks in the grain-producing regions of the country. With Kenya’s annual maize consumption at about 4.7 million tonnes, the aforementioned production estimate means the country could require to import about 1.3 million tonnes within the 2020/21 marketing year. 

He is of the opinion that this could result in South Africa and Zambia that could emerge as key maize suppliers, as both countries are expecting their second largest maize harvests on record within the 2019/20 production season. 

In the case of South Africa, the expected harvest is 15.6 million tonnes, against domestic consumption of roughly 11.0 million tonnes.  In the case of Zambia, the 2019/20 maize harvest is estimated at 3.4 million tonnes against domestic maize consumption of 2.2 million tonnes. This means South Africa could have at least 2.7 million tonnes of maize for export markets within the 2020/21 season, which is up 89% year-on-year,  while Zambia could have a million tonnes of maize for exports, up from 100 000 tonnes in the previous year. This would be the third year on record where Zambia could export a million tonnes of maize. He adds  other key maize producing and consuming countries within the these African regions such as Malawi and Tanzania will most likely have balanced supplies for their domestic markets and very limited room for export markets and that is why the focus only remains on Kenya and Zimbabwe. Together with that, South Africa and Zambia are among the most prominent suppliers of maize to Zimbabwe and Kenya, featured among the top five maize suppliers to both countries in 2019, according to data from Trade Map, says Sihlobo.

That was Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, Agbiz, only on the Agri Hour. To listen to these inserts again go to http://www.ofm.co.za, click on News, Agriculture, the Agri-Hour. Also tune into OFM on weekdays at 11:00 and 13:30 for the latest news in the agricultural sector. 

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