Market overview
Markets
Desember 2013
40
200 000 tons - 250 000 tons of white maize for 2013/2014. Zimbabwe’s
imports have already reached about 104 619 tons of South African white
maize well above 2012/2013’s figure of only 6 079 tons. Keep in mind
that supply and demand for maize is at a break-even level and that any
additional exports are price supportive.
Soybeans
Old crop soybean prices have been trading higher to support parity
(
Graph 2
), owing to expected increases in soybean crushing as well as
tight stocks for the current season. It is expected that 845 000 tons of
soybeans will be crushed in the 2014 marketing year, thus producers
are encouraged to plant more soybeans. Note that the current supply of
soybeans is not sufficient enough to meet the new crushing capacity that
will come online in 2014.
South African sunflower market
Since 2001, South African sunflower seed crude oil imports have
been increasing, with 2012 marking the highest import quantities at
192 000 tons (
Graph 3
). For the past twelve years, the largest suppliers of
sunflower seed crude oil have been Argentina, followed by the Ukraine.
In 2012, Argentina supplied South Africa with an amount of 115 282 tons
of sunflower seed crude oil, with the Ukraine at 32 787 tons. According
to SAGIS (2013), the recent sunflower seed crude oil imports for 2013
(January to June) are at 54 290 tons, with Argentina being the major
supplier at 35 483 tons.
South African sunflower seed:
Area planted and production
Over the years, the area planted and production of sunflower seed has
been changing year on year (
Graph 4
). However, there has been an
increasing trend in the area planted from 2011/2012 to 2013/2014 with
production also showing an increasing trend from 2011/2012 to 2012/2013.
Given favourable climatic conditions, 2013/2014 sunflower production is
expected to increase.
From 2001 to 2013, sunflower seed consumption has also been changing
year on year, with 2009 marking the highest consumption year (
Graph 5
).
The recent intentions to plant (2013/2014) are showing a positive growth
on the area planted; with that in hand, Grain SA’s supply and demand is
showing an expected increase in domestic consumption (2014).
Even though there is an expected increase in the production of grain and
oilseeds in the world market, there has also been an increase in demand.
An increase was also seen in South African sunflower seed crude oil
imports from the world market, thus there is a need to increase domestic
production and crushing capacity to substitute the imports.
Further reading:
USDA, 2013. WASDE. Washington DC. USDA.
Grain SA, 2013. Industry Services. Pretoria. Grain SA.
SAGIS, 2013. Weekly Imports and Exports. Pretoria. SAGIS.
ITC, 2013. Trade Map. Geneva. Trade Map.
Graph 3: South African sunflower seed crude oil imports by country.
Source: ITC (2013)
Graph 5: South African sunflower seed consumption.
Source: Grain SA (2013)
Graph 4: Sunflower seed: Area planted and production.
Source: Grain SA (2013)
A look at the grain and oilseeds market
Continued from page 39
SA Graan/
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