This past week the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its monthly flagship report, the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.
SA’s agricultural exports reached a new record of US$12,8 billion in 2022, up 4% from the previous year. Maize, wine, grapes, citrus, berries, nuts, apples and pears, sugar, avocados, and wool were some of the top exportable products in 2022.
For the past two years, much of the price movements we witnessed in SA’s grains and oilseeds markets were primarily driven by global agricultural events.
SA’s agriculture will likely have a downbeat start into 2023. The gross agricultural value added for 2022, which will be released in March, will probably show a mild contraction.
SA’s agricultural sector continues to show some signs of resilience. With all the challenges this year from tough production conditions in grains and oilseeds, disease outbreaks in livestock and trade barriers in horticulture we still see increasing job opportunities. In the third quarter of this year, there were 873,000 people in primary agriculture.