Silos ready for record maize harvest

As farmers in SA get down to harvesting a record maize crop, operators of grain storage facilities say there is enough space to accommodate the bumper haul.

President of the Grain Handling Organisation of Southern Africa Annatjie Loio said on Thursday that capacity was adequate for the crop, most of which would be stored in silos. New silos were being erected, while some maize had already been booked for export.

The Crop Estimates Committee has predicted a commercial maize crop of 15.631-million tonnes, up 101% from 2016.

Earlier in 2017 Brazil’s farmers had to resort to storage bags as a quick fix to stockpile their bumper crops of soya beans and maize, while in 2016 US farmers faced the prospect of running out of storage space for maize, soya beans and wheat.

Afgri grain management operations manager Jan de Sousa said managing the maize crop started well in advance, with in-house crop estimates and capacity planning.

De Sousa said Afgri, which operates silos across SA’s maize belt, received frequent crop estimates from farmers.

“If additional storage is needed, we look at instructions for dispatching the grain,” he said.

Silos can store the grain for up to seven years.

The head of economic and agribusiness research at the Agricultural Business Chamber, Wandile Sihlobo, said while there were facilities to accommodate the surplus crop, demand for white maize outside SA was weak and could lead to prices remaining low.

He said neighbouring countries were expecting bumper harvests. “White maize prices are down because we can’t find export markets.”

On Thursday, the spot price of white maize was R1,728 a tonne from R3,704 in January.