AGRICULTURAL NEWS - This will inevitably have a negative impact on South Africa’s imports of wheat and meslin products, according to Moses Lubinga, senior economist at the National Agricultural Marketing Council.
Lubinga told Farmer’s Weekly that heatwaves are regarded as the most detrimental climatic stressors for wheat, and if the drought continues, it was likely that South Africa’s wheat imports might reduce by almost twofold due to a drop in yields in the producing countries.
“Due to high demand for wheat in South Africa, the drop in yields in the producing countries is bound to translate into high costs of importing wheat into the country, and this is bound to lead to higher prices of wheat-based consumable products,” he said.
