THE RETURN of summer rain has farmers breathing sighs of deep relief.
Paul Makube, senior agricultural economist at FNB agri-business, said the crop season had a slow start after last year’s drought threatened to make planting difficult.
“Some farmers even planted late but this puts them at risk of frost damage.”
He said the latest National Crop Estimates Committee report shows that farmers have planted 2,27 million hectares of maize this season, which is slightly down by 2,2% based on year-on-year comparisons.
Of the three major producing provinces, the biggest decline is in the Free State, with a 5% drop in planted area.
“Surprisingly, the North West, which accounts for 21% of the total country area under maize, has surprisingly raised its area planted by 1% year-on-year to 487 000 hectares.
“Both the provinces experienced severe drought during December last year which raised fears of a significant drop in output for the 2019/18 production season.”
He said as expected, Mpumalanga’s planted estimate came in 2% higher, mainly due to a 7% increase in the white maize area.
He said the yellow maize area for Mpumalanga was up 1% and still accounts for the biggest maize share (70%).