North America Edition
South African consumers may suffer from higher food prices in the near future. Domestic farmers are exasperated by excessive rainfall damaging their crops, but the exact impact on plantings and crops is yet to be determined. High levels of rainfall have been recorded over the last two to three months, causing severe delays in planting activity in some areas.
The only periods in the recent memory that had three successive years of conducive weather conditions and a large crop harvest were in the 2007/08, 2008/09, and 2009/10 production seasons.
One has to appreciate that the domestic heavy rains challenges come on the backdrop of already elevated agricultural commodity prices and, thereafter, food price inflation. For example, the data available for the first 11 months of 2021 shows that South Africa’s consumer food price inflation averaged 6.5% - compared with 4.6% year-on-year in 2020.
Source: engineeringnews.co.za
Photo source: Dreamstime.com
