South African commercial corn farmers plan to cut plantings to the smallest area since 2019, squeezed by higher input costs and expectations of a drought during the nation\u2019s summer months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Farmers intend to plant corn on about 2.4 million hectares of land in the 2027 season, down 12.4% from the previous year and roughly 10% below the five-year average, the Crop Estimates Committee said in its first report on intentions to plant for the next season released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
White corn, a staple food in South Africa and across the region, will bear the brunt of the cut, with farmers planning to reduce plantings by 18.2%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The area devoted to yellow corn, used mainly for animal feed, is expected to shrink by 3.1%, the committee said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has caused prices of key agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and fuel to surge. Farmers are also facing pressure from a possible El Ni\u00f1o-induced drought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These factors, among others, \u201cinfluence farmers\u2019 decisions about the planting season,\u201d Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, wrote in a note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also warned in a post on X on Monday that the looming drought could push up South African food-price inflation by the end of the first quarter of 2027. That could impact interest rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The central bank said in its latest Monetary Policy Review that it will act decisively to prevent higher fuel and El Ni\u00f1o-related food prices from lifting inflation expectations and feeding into wage-setting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Commercial farmers are planning to cut planting to the smallest area since 2019, as drought expectations and higher costs weigh on the industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":806335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2115363701322580251","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2251992112287854","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17917559262531544","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26960,25744,21374],"class_list":["post-881690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-crop-estimates-committee","tag-el-nino-2","tag-wandile-sihlobo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881748,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881690\/revisions\/881748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}