Hot and dry weather has reduced corn yields throughout southern Africa, “threatening food security for millions of households depending on this key staple for a significant share of calories consumed on a daily basis,” said the IFPRI think tank. In South Africa, the region’s major corn grower, the harvest could fall by 18 percent from the previous crop, said the USDA on Thursday.
White corn provides around 20 percent of daily calories for people in southern Africa, said the blog from the International Food Policy Research Institute. “The dry spell has lasted over 30 days in many areas, and comes at a critical time for crop growth, leading to reports of permanent wilting of crops in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe,” said the blog.
Drought in southern Africa is a frequent result of the El Niño weather pattern, now in force. “The ongoing drought has been widespread, yet less intense in the major production regions of South Africa and northern Malawi,” said IFPRI.
Along with growing the bulk of the region’s corn, South Africa is its leading exporter. The country grows roughly equal amounts of white corn, for human consumption, and yellow corn, fed to livestock. The harvest runs from May through August. U.S. analysts often use South Africa as a proxy for conditions in the region.
“A three-week-long dry spell from mid-February through early March occurred during the grain-filling stages and reduced production prospects for the season” in South Africa, said the USDA. It estimated this year’s corn crop at 14 million metric tons, down 18 percent from the 2022/23 crop. Exports were forecast at 2.09 million tons, compared to 3.50 million tons in 2022/23.
“A key question now is whether those exports will be enough to satisfy the needs of other countries in southern Africa, or whether importing countries like Zimbabwe will need to seek alternatives from outside the region as well,” said the blog, written by Joe Glauber, IFPRI senior research fellow, and Weston Anderson, an agroclimatologist at the University of Maryland and NASA.
Offsetting the prospects of drought-reduced harvests this year, said the analysts, were large stockpiles of corn in the region, the result of two years of larger-than-normal crops. Also, a La Niña weather pattern was expected to develop in coming months, raising the possibility of better weather for the new crop. “However, supplies from outside the region may be necessary to meet consumption needs, and exports will likely decline, particularly to markets outside of southern Africa.”