Pretoria – The festive season normally sees many Gauteng residents, both local and foreign nationals, travelling to their homes to take well-deserved “end-of-year” breaks from their hectic work schedules.

As this is a universal trend, it reminds me of a very familiar trip I make each year to the Eastern Cape to spend time with family and friends. For those who call the Eastern Cape home, it is highly likely that one will either fly to East London or Mthatha airports, or otherwise make a long and torrid 8-hour drive by road.

I typically fall into the latter group, by personal choice, to enjoy the beautiful province-to-province landscapes and some music in my car.

As I left Gauteng with excitement of seeing the landscapes this December, I was greeted by the cruel reminder of the seriousness of the drought that is currently plaguing the country. Many a time, I had voiced great concern of the extent to which the drought had ravaged most of South Africa’s farming regions, but the truth of the matter is that the last time I visited the farms was the beginning of November, some four to five weeks ago.

During that period, I had closely followed weather forecasts, and I have been writing desktop research notes from data and insights from our regional operators and other sources.

Those that have been following weather events and forecasts will know that the last couple weeks have not provided any positive prospects of meaningful improvement of the rainfall situation in the country, and my trip to the Eastern Cape gave me the gruesome reality of the situation on the ground.

What in most years should be plush panoramic views of undulating soybean, maize and sunflower crop fields is, at present, a desert environment akin to the Karoo. While planting had commenced, much of the crop germination is under heat stress, and in situation in irrigation areas is no better, with water shortages condemning most of the crop to suffer immense heat stress.

Ripple effect

My journey to the Eastern Cape traverses through large parts of Gauteng and the Free State, as well as the Eastern Cape itself, which altogether contribute roughly 45-49 percent of South Africa’s total maize. What makes the picture even grimmer is the fact that this region contains a reasonably large commercial and smallholder livestock farming community and the agricultural performance of this region will have a considerable impact on our national aggregate total food outlook.

As we consider the water shortage and the likely impacts on maize prices, the ripple effects on feed costs, animal protein and maize prices will have a significant bearing on the general food inflation, and in turn, consumer welfare.

Estimates, taken from Grain SA, suggest South Africa might again be a net maize importer in 2016/17 marketing year. The imports might treble the 2015/16 import estimate of 770 000 tons and that might pose some difficulties on infrastructure side (shipping ports) as the country will also need about 2 million tons imports of wheat this season and possibly volumes of soybean.

This concerns me,;on my first day of work this year, 5 January 2015, white maize prices were at R2120 per ton and on my last day of work for the year (18 December 2015), prices had increased by 94 percent to R4 115 per ton.

Further increases in prices occurred around the beginning of December 2015 as drought fears intensified and the rand continued to weaken. This means that these increases have not yet filtered through to maize products in the retail shelves due to the lag-effect.

In 2016, one can expect substantial increase in maize meal prices and ultimately in prices of other grain related food sources.

Even more concerning is that the other Southern African Development Community countries are also facing the same challenge.

It is worth noting that in a normal year, about 69 percent of SADC’s maize imports (excluding South Africa) come from South Africa. In 2016/17, these countries’ maize import needs might increase and that adds further pressure to the South African ports, as an entry for the regional markets.

As devastating as this drought situation is, somehow it offers us an opportunity to engage with agricultural technology developers, support services and innovators and seriously reflect on the level and type of investments in agriculture. Furthermore, we need to find possible financial interventions to support our local farmers, as they have made huge losses in 2015/16 and some are again likely to make further losses in 2016/17 year.

Evident through history, South Africa experienced droughts in the early 1930s, the early 1980s and as recently as 1992, and undoubtedly, this will not be the last. Given the current increasing frequency and severity of droughts, adding to the current global warming threat, the next drought spell may well be sooner than imagined; threatening our food security status even further.

Sihlobo is an economist at Grain SA, he writes in his own capacity. Twitter @WandileSihlobo. His views are not necessarily those of IOL.

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