SA agricultural conditions

Loading player...
We continue to receive encouraging notes about the prospects of La Niña in the 2025-26 summer season. The La Niña-induced rains will help support field crops, horticulture, and grazing veld for livestock. The farmers are optimistic and plan to increase area plantings, primarily of field crops.

One aspect of the agricultural sector that has posed a significant challenge is the livestock industry, which struggles with foot-and-mouth disease. But South Africa is embarking on vaccination nationwide. This will be a considerable undertaking to vaccinate over 12 million cattle (about 7.2 million are in the commercial herd).

The better weather outlook, combined with the vaccination campaign, provides us optimism that we may transition from a “mixed recovery” in 2025 to a “better recovery” in 2026. We remain optimistic.

Listen to the podcast more.
30 Nov English South Africa Investing · Food

Other recent episodes

SA farmers are upbeat about business conditions in the sector

After falling for two consecutive quarters, the Agbiz/IDC Agribusiness Confidence Index (ACI) increased by 5 points to 67 in Q4 2025. Favourable weather conditions, strong exports throughout the year on the back of ample grains, oilseeds, and horticulture harvests, as well as better port efficiencies, are among the key drivers…
7 Dec 11 min

The G20 places a spotlight on the global hunger problem

About 720 million people continued to experience hunger in 2024, and 2.6 billion people were unable to afford healthy diets. It is this reality that compelled the G20 Leaders' Declaration in Johannesburg to shine a spotlight on global food insecurity challenges correctly. Countries can explore many interventions to resolve this…
23 Nov 9 min