Agricultural Market Viewpoint with Wandile Sihlobo

We are in another favourable agricultural season in South Africa, with favourable rains that enabled the farmers to plant and supported the grazing veld for the livestock industry. This builds on a better agricultural performance in 2025, a year of La Niña rains that supported the sector. The only significant risk at the moment is foot-and-mouth disease, which continues to weigh on South Africa’s cattle industry. The Department of Agriculture is undertaking a nationwide vaccination campaign against foot-and-mouth disease, and the success of this process remains vital to the sustainability of the sector. Listen to the podcast for more information. Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

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 of optimism in the sector. We suspect that the announcement of nationwide vaccination of cattle against foot-and-mouth disease also contributed to the upbeat mood, as the disease is a national challenge that, for some time, seemed out of control. The current ACI level of 67 is well above the 50-neutral mark, suggesting that South African agribusinesses are generally optimistic about business conditions in the country. This survey was conducted in the last week of November and covered agribusinesses operating across various agricultural subsectors nationwide. Listen to the full podcast for more information. Wandile Sihlobo website

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. Wandile Sihlobo website

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 challenge, from improving agricultural productivity to easing trade. Listen to the podcast. Wandile Sihlobo website

Various regions of South Africa have started receiving the 2025-26 summer rains. The rains will help ensure that the agricultural season begins on time and that we have excellent production conditions. The farmers are relatively optimistic, having suggested that they intend to plant 4.5 million hectares of summer grains and oilseeds, a 1% increase from the 2024-25 season. Importantly, the favourable rains also help improve the grazing veld for livestock, and are beneficial to the horticulture industry. Listen to the podcast for more. Wandile Sihlobo website