Johannesburg - South Africa had just received its largest shipment of white maize for the season so far from Mexico yesterday, said Agricultural Business Chamber senior agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo.
Sihlobo said the shipment would go a long way to helping South Africa meet its demand for white maize.
“We have just received 56 019 tons of white maize from Mexico and it is the largest shipment for the 2016/17 marketing season so far. The demand for the white maize in the rest of the world has created a shortage for the commodity,” Sihlobo said.
He said the marketing season started at the beginning of April this year and it ended on April 30 next year. He said the white maize imported since the beginning of this month was 78 827 tons. South Africa intended to import 1.1 million tons of white maize for this marketing season, he said.
National white maize consumption was 4.4 million tons a year, according to Grain SA.
Sihlobo said the overall maize consumption in the country was about 10.5 million tons a year, with 48 percent (5 million tons) being white maize and the balance being yellow maize.
Mexico and the US are the two countries that supply South Africa with white maize. Yellow maize is mostly imported from Argentina.
“This year’s domestic white maize production is forecast at 3.097 million tons. In order to supplement the domestic supplies, the country is set to import roughly 1.1 million tons of white maize. At the moment, it is still unclear whether South Africa will be able to acquire this volume of maize from the global market, given the scarcity of the commodity. However, South Africa’s white maize demand is still strong regardless of the price increases,” he said.
Sihlobo said South Africa might not be able to get the required maize imports and it was possible that some consumers might shift to other substitute products such as rice and wheat products.
He said it was wrong to assume all of the white maize went to human consumption.
“The general perception is that all the white maize is consumed in the food market, however, only 70 percent of the 5 million tons actually goes to human consumption. The rest is consumed by livestock as maize chop,” he said.
Sihlobo said that between July last year and May this year, monthly white maize for human consumption averaged 252 779 tons. In the past few months, the consumption trend also showed a slight uptick.
BUSINESS REPORT