According to the South African Cereals and Oilseeds Trade Association (Sacota), during the 2025/26 summer grain production season, it quickly became evident that South Africa was likely to yield record maize and soybean crops.
The association said the mid-summer drought during late January and early February introduced some uncertainty, but the rain resumed in time for most parts of the country.
“The first confirmation of an expected record production came on 23 April 2026 when the Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) forecast a maize crop of 16.8 million tons and a soybean crop of 2.8 million tons. These expectations of record production were accompanied by expectations of a decline in prices and subsequent exports.
“Early expectations for maize were around 3.6 million tons, and for soybeans 600 000 tons. The South African soybean industry, being relatively new on the export market, faced an additional challenge because the yellow maize export program historically receives preference at the Port of Durban export terminals, for various reasons, potentially limiting soybean exports,” Sacota said.
Impact on exports
The organisation stated that, due to tight inland stocks and demand from the local crushing industries, limited stocks were initially available for export. Therefore, despite a record soybean crop, it appeared as though deep- sea exports would be minimal.
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“Nonetheless, Sacota continued to prepare for the export programme. This included the annual export registration programme for China, which went online. This was a tripartite initiative among Sacota, the Directorate Inspections (department of agriculture), and eCert (an online software vendor that facilitates, amongst other things, e-phytosanitary certificates for the department).
“All interested traders, export terminals, and silos had to be registered, as required by China. Similarly, the Indonesian market, which opened two years ago, requires the registration of exporters to access this market,” Sacota said.
However, at more or less the same time, China, in an effort to promote trade with Africa, made an offer under which all import duties on agricultural products entering China were unilaterally waived, without any corresponding concessions for Chinese exports.
“This is a much-needed boost for the local industry, especially to secure future market opportunities. China is the world’s largest importer of soybeans, importing approximately 100-110 million tons annually. It probably will mean that closing soybean stocks at the end of the season (February 2027) will now be much tighter.”
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