Johannesburg - South Africa, the continent’s largest producer of corn, will probably raise its estimate for output of the grain this season by 0.1 percent and may leave its wheat-production prediction unchanged, Bloomberg surveys showed.
The country’s farmers may produce 14.31 million metric tons of corn, according to the median estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
The range was 14.3 million tons to 14.44 million tons and compares with the August 22 prediction of 14.3 million tons by the Crop Estimates Committee.
The CEC will release its final corn-output prediction for the season on September 30.
The nation uses white corn to make a staple food known locally as pap, while the yellow variety is mainly fed to animals.
This year’s corn harvest would be the largest since 1981 when South Africa produced 14.6 million tons, Marda Scheepers a spokeswoman for the committee, said on August 27.
Local farmers will probably harvest 1.78 million tons of wheat this season, matching the committee’s most recent forecast, according to a median prediction of five analysts in a separate Bloomberg survey.
The range was 1.78 million tons to 1.82 million tons.
While the country is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest producer of the grain, it’s still a net importer of wheat, according to US Department of Agriculture data. - Bloomberg News