Government maize estimate too high

THE government’s forecast of a 7.2million-ton maize harvest this year is optimistic and will certainly be revised down, South Africa’s largest grain producer group says. “The crop estimate is too high,” Grain SA chief executive Jannie de Villiers said yesterday at the group’s congress near Bothaville, in the northwestern Free State maize belt. “We have not had rain the last four weeks in the western regions where late plantings took place and that maize is in big trouble.

“The 7.2-million-ton estimate will be revised down. We are at a point where it will constantly be revised down,” De Villiers said. The government’s Crop Estimates Committee said last week that South Africa would probably harvest 7.255 million tons of maize, 27% less than the 9.95 million tons reaped last year, because of the drought and late plantings. Grain SA’s own import forecast of 3.8 million tons of maize was likely to rise to 4.5 million tons. But De Villiers said: “If we don’t get any more rain, it will probably go to five million tons.”