Current conditions: Rain continued over most of the Western Cape and adjacent Eastern Cape during September 2018.

The People’s Republic of China is, according to many market analysts and commentators, fast becoming the major economic power in the world which is a very important topic almost everywhere.

A large share of the 2017/18 maize crop has already been delivered to commercial silos, hence the weekly producer deliveries have slowed in the recent weeks. In the week of 05 October 2018, maize producer deliveries amounted to 31 986 tonnes, down by 62 percent from the previous week. About 55 percent of this was white maize, with 45 percent being yellow maize. 

The United Kingdom's trade commissioner for Africa, Emma Wade-Smith, said on Tuesday that the UK had full confidence in South Africa's "stimulus package" and was more likely to continue to invest in South Africa despite the country's troubled economy going through a technical recession.

As Ben Cousins recently argued in Business Day, agriculture can be an important contributor to the creation of jobs in SA through a well-executed land reform programme. But then we need to do it right and learn from SA's history, which has a lot to offer.

On Monday, we painted a somewhat optimistic picture regarding the weather outlook this year, basing our opinion on the South African Weather Service’s report which indicated a possibility of above-normal rainfall over most parts of the summer crop growing areas between November 2018 and January 2019, with a chance of dryness later in the summer season due to an expected El Niño.