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South Africa’s soybean industry:
A brief overview
s
outh Africa is the largest importer
of soybean oilcake in sub-Saharan
Africa, accounting for an average
of 72% of import demand. With
an estimated soybean crushing
capacity of 2,3 million tons, South
frica remains the largest industrial user
of soybean in the sub-Sahara region.
The exponential growth in oilcake and oil
demand has been driven, to a large de-
gree, by increasing demand for animal feed,
which in turn, has been spurred on by an
increase in demand for high protein food
– especially within the growing middle class.
South African soybean production has
responded positively to these changing
demands, and for the first time ever, the
country’s production is projected to reach
1 million tons in the 2015/2016 season.
Despite the increasing levels of soybean
production, South Africa still imports con-
siderable amounts of soybean oilcake and
oil, and there is still scope to further in-
crease production in order to substitute
these imports.
In fact, South Africa’s domestic soybean
production is a third of the country’s crush-
ing capacity. In this article, we briefly
explore the soybean market structure by
reflecting on production, consumption and
trade trends.
Production perspective
Soybean is produced throughout the coun-
try, with significant production in the Free
State and Mpumalanga provinces. South
African soybean production has varied
throughout the years, remaining mostly
above the domestic demand (
Graph 1
).
However, as from the 2012/2013 produc-
tion season, demand exceeded production
due to an increased demand from the new-
ly established crushing plants (
Table 1
).
Augustus 2015
66
ON FARM LEVEL
WANDILE SIHLOBO,
economist: Industry Services, Grain SA
and
TINASHE KAPUYA
,
head: Trade and Investment, Agbiz
GRAIN MARKET
overview
– 14 July 2015
Graph 1: South African soybean production.
Source: Grain SA (2015)
* 1990/1991 - 1994/1995 = data limitations
Graph 2: Summer grain production index.
Source: Grain SA (2015)