The spot price for white maize has increased week-on-week to R5,825, while the July 2025 price has dropped to R3,950. However, the spot price for yellow maize has risen week-on-week to R4,740, with the July 2025 price now at R3,739 per ton. The CBOT maize price has been quite volatile recently but is slightly higher than it was a week ago. Internationally, we see that Argentina has received good rainfall, allowing them to complete maize plantings. With Brazil also delaying soybean plantings, there are concerns that the safrinha maize harvest will be planted late, which could limit the hectares planted and provide long-term support to the market. Locally, we expect white and yellow maize prices to maintain their upward trend, with yellow maize possibly having more upward potential as this price has broken through the upper support level for the first time in 21 weeks. The July 2025 contract prices are still influenced by local weather. The eastern and some northern parts of the summer production areas are actively planting, but we are still waiting for the ideal planting window for the western and central areas, along with more rain needed in certain areas before planting can begin. If there are no significant issues, this could start to suppress new season prices.
The spot price for soybeans has increased week-on-week to R8,900, while the May 2025 price remains unchanged at R7,705 per ton. The sunflower spot price has risen week-on-week to R10,583, with the May 2025 price standing at R9,350 per ton. CBOT soybeans have been on a downward trend since last Wednesday, which we attribute to record global stocks, the US expecting a large harvest, and Brazil starting their plantings. The weather narrative is now shifting to the end of November, which is critical for Brazil’s soybeans. Locally, soybean prices have recently shown a more sideways trend, and we expect this to continue until new news comes to the market. However, sunflowers have been gaining strength, attributed to drought and conflict in the Black Sea region. The EU sunflower price has also been on an upward trend for more than two months, which we expect to raise our local prices as well.
The wheat spot price has dropped week-on-week to R5,973, with the December price at R5,948 per ton. The CBOT wheat price is also very volatile but is slightly lower than it was a week ago. Internationally, there is significant uncertainty due to the war and drought in the Black Sea region, as well as Argentina downgrading their harvest. However, they received good rainfall last week in their largest production areas, which could improve their harvest.
In the local market, the December 2024 price has been on a downward trend for the past ten days, which we attribute to the pressure from harvesting now beginning. There are concerns that the December price is abnormally low and not in line with previous years’ price levels. We have therefore looked at how current prices compare to previous years and calculated the average December contract price in October, November, and December from 2016 to 2023. The graph shows that prices in 2022 were an outlier, mainly due to Russia invading Ukraine that year. Aside from 2022, there are only two months where the December contract price was higher than R6,000, where we are currently trading. Thus, it seems that current prices are in line with the levels we saw in 2021 and 2023. However, producer profitability has been significantly suppressed in the last two years as input costs are much higher than in 2021.
The sorghum import parity price landed in Durban rose last week to R5,343 per ton, while the producer’s import parity price for shelled Argentine peanuts rose to R26,736 per ton and the cotton import parity price traded at R9,910 per ton.