South Africa's winter crops and horticulture fields are likely to be spared of dryness this winter

There is a generally held view that South Africa will likely transition into an El Niño state in the upcoming 2023/24 summer season. However, the intensity of it, its duration, and its impact on crop production remain uncertain. Still, South Africa can be expected to have a smaller harvest compared with the past four years of consecutive ample harvests of field crops and horticulture. A critical factor to note is that the expected El Niño comes after four straight seasons of solid rainfall and good soil moisture. Therefore, in the event of a weak El Niño state, the current soil moisture conditions could support crop conditions and ensure another reasonably decent harvest as in 2018/19, which was also an El Niño period. Notably, the season before 2018/19 was not even as favourably wet as the past four seasons. We will have a much better view of the expected El Niño intensity in two to three months, which will also be closer to the summer crop planting. This past week, the South ...