Less rainfall leads to high prices of maize, says Agricultural economist
An agricultural economist from GrainSA, Corné Louw, says maizemeal prices have increased and are still expected to rise.
The government's Crop Estimates Committee, says they expect farmers to harvest 19.3% less maize in the 2023/24 season - compared to the previous one.
The harvest is reportedly expected to consist of 6.28 million tons of white maize, for human consumption, and 6.98 million tons of yellow maize, used mainly in animal feed.
Louw says white maize prices had to increase to protect it from the yellow maize market which is used to produce animal feed.
He says, although the season started off good, things have deteriorated.
"Almost for the past 50 days, we have not received any general rain in the summer rainfall area and we were hit by heat wave after heat wave. I think that is the major reason of the crop being down as estimated by the committee".
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