Johannesburg - South Africa, the continent’s largest producer of corn, last week shipped the most of the yellow variety to a single country in more than a year.
The nation exported 77,586 metric tons of yellow corn to Japan in the week to July 5, the Pretoria-based South African Grain Information Service said in statement on its website.
That’s the biggest shipment in a week since at least April 28, 2012, when Sagis started providing weekly historical data.
The country may run out of the yellow variety, which it uses mainly as animal feed, if exports rise further, raising the price of the white variety that is a staple food, a growers’ organization and traders said last week.
In the 10 weeks since the start of the season, South Africa has exported 458,453 tons of yellow corn, already exceeding the amount shipped for the entire previous season.
“The big thing is that exports are a concern, we will need to import more if we run out of yellow corn,” Lindy van Blommestein, a trader at Johannesburg-based Farmwise Grains (Pty) Ltd., said by phone.
Japan has been the biggest buyer of South African corn since the season started on April 27, purchasing 51 percent of the 609,681 tons of the yellow and white varieties shipped in the period.
The Crop Estimates Committee cut its forecast for corn output by 0.6 percent to 11.38 million tons in a June 25 report. South Africa produced 12.8 million tons in 2010, the biggest harvest since 1982.
Yellow corn for delivery in September, the most active contract, gained 0.5 percent to 2,206 rand ($219) a ton, by the close on the South African Futures Exchange.
The white variety gained 0.4 percent to 2,282 rand a ton.
The country will probably consume 4.54 million tons of yellow corn and could supply 5.74 million tons in the marketing year through April, the Grain and Oilseeds Supply and Demand Estimates Committee said in its debut report, released on June 28. - Bloomberg News