South Africa harvests record 2.771 mln tons of soybeans

following favourable rainfall. Significantly, this harvest marginally exceeded the last ample crop of 2.770 million tonnes in the 2022-23 season. This abundant harvest further entrenches South Africa’s position as a net soybean exporter. Importantly, this is remarkable progress, given that in the 2010s South Africa was a net importer of soybean oilcake, bringing in close to a million tonnes a year. We are now in a far better position than we were in that distant past. We are now a net exporter. What follows is a brief synopsis of how we got to this excellent position: a superb soybean harvest. In the 2010s, South Africa experienced a strong demand for soybean oilcake or meal. The growing demand for oilcake, in turn, was underpinned by increased consumption of high-protein foods, particularly poultry products, in the country. South Africa’s per capita consumption of poultry meat has almost doubled over the past two decades, currently estimated at around 41 kilograms. To meet the ...