South Africa agribusiness should keep a close eye on the rest of Africa

Published 2023년 3월 27일

Tridge summary

The article highlights South Africa's strong agricultural export performance, with the continent accounting for 37% of the total exports in 2022, primarily driven by maize. The focus is on the need to expand and engage with existing markets, including those within the Southern African Development Community and the rest of Africa, to ensure positive trade relations and address concerns such as the recent import block on vegetables from South Africa. It also discusses the current state of South Africa's consumer food price inflation, which reached 14% year-on-year in February 2023, with key factors and expectations for deceleration in the latter half of the year. The article concludes by mentioning the important upcoming data releases related to agricultural production and international trade, including the USDA's Oil Crops Yearbook and South Africa's domestic production forecasts and grain trade data.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

Although we continue to argue that South Africa should expand its agricultural export markets to new frontiers such as India, China, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea, amongst others, the export drive should not be at the expense of the existing markets. We should actively engage with existing markets to stimulate the continued expansion of South African agricultural exports. The engagement should focus on the EU and Asia, both crucial regions for export growth, and the rest of the African continent. The African continent remains the largest export market for South Africa's agriculture. In the record agricultural exports of US$12,8 billion in 2022, the African continent accounted for 37%. Importantly, this was not an anomaly. The continent has accounted, on average, for 38% of South Africa's agricultural exports by value per annum over the past five years. Unlike the other regions South Africa exports to, where the composition of products is predominantly fruits, beef, ...

Source: Farmingportal