South Africa: Wheat crisis deepens as government stalls

that the crisis was eventually stabilised through relaxed quality standards, improved seed technologies, and better production practices, along with changes such as grading adjustments. These interventions kept national output steady despite a sharp contraction in the area under production, which fell from just under 1,6 million hectares in the late 1990s to just above 600 000ha. Average yields, in turn, rose from about 1t/ha in 1995/96 to more than 4t/ha by the 2020s. “But hectares are at risk of falling again. Northern producers are moving to more competitive crops such as maize and soya bean, while farmers in the Western Cape, constrained by climate, have no such option. And for many of them, the financial strain has reached crisis levels,” he said. Swartland farmer and Grain SA board member Koos Blanckenberg said producers in the Swartland suffered “huge losses” in 2024 and 2025 due to unfavourable weather, high input costs, and depressed market prices. He added that the ...