Southern Africa Regional Supply and Market Outlook

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) monitors trends in staple food supply and price trends in countries at risk of food insecurity. The Regional Supply and Market Outlook report provides a summary of regional staple food availability, surpluses and deficits during the current marketing year, projected price behavior, implications for local and regional commodity procurement, and essential market monitoring indicators. FEWS NET gratefully acknowledges partner organizations, national ministries of agriculture, national market information systems, regional organizations, and others for their assistance in providing the harvest estimates, commodity balance sheets, as well as trade and price data used in this report. To learn more about typical market conditions in Southern Africa, readers are invited to explore the Southern Africa Regional Maize Market Fundamentals Summary.

• Maize supplies in Southern Africa are above-average, owing to high production levels during the 2016/17 production year. Production for the 2017/18 marketing year is estimated to be average to above average across the region, with substantially above-average harvests reported in South Africa.

• Regional maize surpluses for the 2017/18 marketing year are expected to be substantially higher than average levels. This is a significant shift from the 2016/17 marketing year, when maize supplies were severely constrained by the El Nino induced drought, triggering record-high international imports and influencing opening-stocks for the 2017/18 marketing year. 

• The 2017/18 surplus will satisfy national import requirements among structurally-deficit countries. Furthermore, given large surpluses and relatively low prices, the region is expected to export internationally to satisfy maize gaps in East Asia and East Africa during the 2017/18 marketing year.

• Tanzania, which is typically surplus-producing for maize, has below-average net supplies and is importing maize from Zambia and Malawi. 

• Maize prices in Malawi and Mozambique have recovered from the exceptionally high levels experienced during the last two marketing seasons. Elsewhere in the region, maize prices are at or below average levels and expected to remain so throughout the 2017/18 marketing year. Exceptions to this trend may likely be in Tanzania where prices are expected to remain above average.