South Africa will forecast its smallest maize crop in a decade this week in the face of a searing drought that has forced farmers to scale back planting and is hitting yields, a Reuters poll of five trading houses showed on Monday. The Crop Estimates Committee (CEC), which will give its first production forecast for the 2016 crop on Wednesday, is seen pegging the harvest at 6.86 million tonnes, which would be the lowest since 2006 and a 31 percent decline from last year.
The forecast range was 5.9 to 7.3 million tonnes though traders said it was difficult to assess the harvest at this early stage, midway through the summer growing season. But the CEC has made the unprecedented move of giving its first forecast in January, a month earlier than usual, because of the severity of the drought which saw the lowest rainfall in South Africa last year since records began.
Releasing its forecast early is meant to help policy makers plan for possible shortages due to drought, officials say. Late rains in January prompted some farmers to plant in the western part of the maize belt. This was at least two months late and they will be in a race against time to reap what they have sown before frost sets in. Africa's top producer of the grain is usually a maize exporter but it may need to import six million tonnes this year, or more than half its requirements.
The poll forecast that the CEC would estimate a white maize crop of 3.3 million tones, 30 percent lower than last year, and just over 3.5 million tonnes for yellow maize, down a third. Prices for both varieties of maize - white, mainly consumed by humans, and yellow, mostly used as animal feed - have scaled record highs on the mounting concerns about the drought, which has been exacerbated by an El Nino weather pattern.