Strong exports mask SA’s stubborn dependence on key food imports

South Africa is an agriculturally abundant country, with exports of more than $15-billion in 2025. But the country still imports a sizeable volume of agricultural products, spending over $7-billion a year, mainly on wheat, rice, palm oil, poultry products and whiskies, among others.

The major reason some of these key staple products are not produced domestically is environmental constraints. We are a semi-arid country and cannot efficiently produce rice or palm oil, which require plenty of water.

In the case of poultry products, ongoing efforts under the national Poultry Sector Master Plan aim to increase domestic production and reduce imports. Currently, SA imports various poultry products from Brazil, the EU and the US, among others, which account for roughly 20% of annual consumption.

Over the years, higher feed costs have been among the key challenges for SA, but this is progressively changing as the country has seen a notable increase in domestic soybean production and is now a net exporter of soybeans. About 70% of poultry input costs are the main feed, soybean and yellow maize.

Therefore, the decline in the prices of these products helps the economics of domestic poultry farming. In the case of wheat, SA now imports about half of its annual consumption. But this was not always the case.

Increased domestic consumption, alongside population growth and a shift in land use in parts of the Free State, have, over time, led to the need for increased imports.

Decline in wheat production

Farmers in some regions of the Free State have, since the deregulation of agricultural markets, switched to more profitable food crops, resulting in a decline in wheat production in those regions. SA now produces about half of its wheat in the Western Cape, with the balance coming from the Northern Cape, Free State and Limpopo.

The SA wheat industry’s profitability has remained a challenge, especially in the Western Cape. The surge in input costs, combined with generally lower global wheat prices, has been the major factor in reducing the profitability of farming businesses.

In the 2025-26 production year, among other issues, the start of the season was marked by unfavourable weather conditions and snail infestations in some regions of the Western Cape, forcing farmers to replant, which further increased production costs.

The fact that the yields were also generally poor made things worse for the farmers. SA’s wheat harvest is now forecast at 1.89 million tonnes, down by 2% from the previous season, according to the latest data from the Crop Estimates Committee.

The decline in the harvest is primarily in the Western Cape, the core producing province, due to the challenges highlighted above. Production in other provinces is reasonably robust but not sufficient to change the national picture.

The decline in domestic wheat production comes at a time when international wheat prices are under pressure amid an improving global wheat harvest. For example, the International Grains Council forecasts 2025-26 global wheat production at a record 842 million tonnes, up 5% year-on-year. This is on the back of ample harvests in the EU, Russia, the US, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, among others. It is partly these ample global supplies and lower global wheat prices that have led to calls for an increase in the domestic wheat import tariff.

Import tariffs

The wheat import tariff exists to provide some level of protection for domestic wheat producers while ensuring that consumer welfare is not sacrificed in the process. The key is to find some level of balance. SA will probably have to import about 1.85 million tonnes of wheat for the current marketing year, which ends in September – the same as the previous season. We initially expected imports to be lower, but the recent downward revisions to domestic production may necessitate an increase in import volume above our initial estimate of 1.75 million tonnes.

Ultimately, while SA is an agriculturally abundant country, we remain an importer of many major food products. The reason for imports, however, primarily concerns environmental constraints rather than an unfavourable policy. Importantly, the import list also presents an opportunity for trading partners to increase trade with SA in these products as SA pushes for greater exports of fruit, wine, nuts, meat and grains, among others. DM

Wandile Sihlobo is the Presidential Envoy on Agriculture and Land. He is also the chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, and a senior research fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.