This as South Africa receives its first shipment of white maize from the USA since 2004.

Grain SA economist, Corné Louw, confirmed that the latest SA Grain Information Service (Sagis) report shows more than 1300 tons have so far been off-loaded. He says they are expecting the final total to be around 30 000 tons.

Louw says it is generally difficult for South Africa to import white maize from the USA due to restrictions imposed by GM, or genetically modified maize, legislation.

“According to our information it is GM-free maize. As far as we know we can’t yet import some of the maize from the US (GM varieties).

“Due to the fact that they commingle all of their maize – they don’t keep it separate – it’s currently difficult for South Africa to import maize from the US.”

Louw says South Africa has imported roughly 74 000 tons of white maize and about 1,7 million tons of yellow maize for the 2015/16 maize marketing season, which closes at the end of April.

He says expectations are that we will need to import about 1,1 million tons of white maize in the new season.

Sabrina Dean/OFM News