May I have some more – maize meal?

The white maize demand for human consumption is exploding in South Africa. We saw a year-on-year increase in demand between 2018 and 2019 of almost 5%, and current projections show that we could see another annual increase in demand of 10% from 2019 to 2020.

White maize (maize meal) is not only a staple food in South Africa but also a relatively cheap form of food procurement for households. I believe the main reasons for the jump in demand are the population growth in Southern Africa, and the economic downturn with people looking for cheaper food options.

With demand looking so strong we can expect continued support for maize prices going forward because higher demand will need a constant higher supply. Any hiccups in production will mean South Africa will most likely have to move closer to import parity over the long term because the availability of area to produce maize is restricted.

Table 1 shows the monthly usage of WM for human consumption over the past few years. At the end of each column we can see the increase in demand with higher monthly averages per year.

Table 1

Table 2 shows the monthly comparison of the last three years in a bar chart. The green bar shows the monthly usage thus far for 2020/2021, clearly leading the pack.

Table2

Source: SAGIS