Johannesburg - South Africa cut its estimate for corn plantings in the 2015 production season 3.3 percent, and trimmed the prediction for wheat output, the Crop Estimates Committee said.
The nation’s farmers may sow 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) of the grain in the 2014 season, Marda Scheepers, a spokeswoman for the committee, said by phone from Pretoria today.
That compares with the CEC’s September 30 forecast of 2.69 million hectares and is more than the 2.48 million-hectare median estimate of three analysts in an October 24 Bloomberg survey.
“We can attribute this to lower prices and a switch to oilseeds such as soybeans,” Scheepers said.
This year’s corn harvest would the largest since 1981, when the nation produced 14.9 million metric tons, the most since records started in 1936, according to the grain service.
White corn is used to make a staple food known locally as pap, while the yellow variety is mainly fed to animals.
The committee raised its estimate for sunflower-seed plantings 5.8 percent to 633,600 hectares, soy was increased 23 percent to 618,000 hectares, while the groundnuts estimate rose 12 percent to 58,200 hectares.
The sorghum-plantings forecast advanced 2.1 percent to 80,500 hectares and dry beans were raised 15 percent to 64,000 hectares.
The committee trimmed its estimate for wheat production 0.2 percent to 1.78 million tons this season.
The September 30 estimate was for 1.79 million tons, while the median of three analysts’ predictions was 1.77 million tons.
The forecast for malting-barley output was kept at 317,893 tons, while that of canola was lowered 3.2 percent to 142,500 tons.
While South Africa is the sub-Saharan region’s biggest producer of wheat after Ethiopia, it is still a net importer of the cereal, according to US Department of Agriculture data. - Bloomberg News