Over the past few months I have argued that we should not worry much about SA's current heatwave and that rainfall could soon provide some relief. This was based on the SA Weather Service’s views in its Seasonal Climate Watch published on September 30 2019.
The agency indicated that the central and eastern regions of SA were likely to receive above-normal rainfall between November 2019 and January 2020. This, of course, would have been timely given that this is a critical period for planting decisions for most summer crops, particularly maize, sunflower seed, soybeans, sorghum, peanuts and dry beans.
But the latest communication from the weather bureau released on November 4 paints a markedly poorer picture of the rainfall outlook over the coming months. The latest forecasts point to a possibility for below-normal rainfall over the eastern regions of SA between November 2019 and January 2020.
Meanwhile, the western regions of SA could receive above-normal rainfall over the same period. From January 2020 onwards the projected likelihood of dryness across the country is higher compared with the previous September forecast. Temperatures are set to be higher than normal over this period, making matters worse.
This essentially means that the 2019/2020 summer crop production season might not be as good as I expected. Moreover, although the latest report from the Crop Estimates Committee shows that farmers intend to increase the area plantings for summer crops by 7% year on year in 2019/2020 to 3.9-million hectares, I am concerned that this might also not materialise if dryness persists as weather forecasts suggest. The impact would then spill over to the livestock sector.
The key question is what does all this mean for broader agriculture performance going into 2020 and the food value-chain? It is too early to ascertain the impact. Fields will need to be monitored for a few months to work out the potential agricultural performance in 2020.
But the latest data from the weather service suggests a growing likelihood that we will have a poor harvest, which will probably also have a negative impact on the livestock sector, all else being equal. Making matters worse, SA’s 2018/2019 production season was not particularly good. It was dominated by dryness and as a result major summer crop harvests were down by double-digits from the previous season.
As I write this article, there has not been much activity on the fields so far, although the optimal planting window for our staple grain — maize — runs from October 15 to November 15 in the eastern regions of SA. Lack of rain is causing the delay in planting, as I indicated in a previous post.
This is all very worrying, specifically for farmers, but consumers can relax a bit, for now. SA has sufficient grain supplies for the 2019/2020 marketing year which ends early 2020 (in February for oilseeds and April for maize). From April 2020 onwards much will depend on what happens to the crop that is yet to be planted.
The news of drier weather conditions could, however, possibly lead to an uptick in agricultural commodity prices. The impact of which might filter through to consumer prices in three months’ time because of the lag from farm prices to consumer prices (I have discussed the food price transmission mechanism story here).
Given how badly SA needs rainfall, this is probably the only time that I wish these forecasts could be wrong. But science is science, and we have to work with the information we have at hand to plan for the months ahead. So far, the outlook for the agriculture sector is looking increasingly worrying.
• Sihlobo (@WandileSihlobo) is head of economic and agribusiness research at the Agricultural Business Chamber.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.