Maize yield levels convey a key message about El Niño periods in South Africa
In my recent posts, I have expressed concerns about the potential negative impact of the looming El Niño-induced drought on South Africa’s agriculture.
But this chart of maize yields clearly captures the challenge we have experienced in the past. This is also what could happen in the 2026-27 season ahead.
From 2013 through to 2026, South Africa has experienced both La Niña, which brings excellent rains, and El Niño, which leads to drought.
Evidently, in El Niño years, especially the severe 2013-14 event, we saw maize yields drop to 3.49 tonnes per hectare, compared with levels over 5.00 tonnes per hectare in La Niña years.
And indeed, the last two El Niño events were not as severe, so maize yields remained above 4.00 tonnes per hectare.
The picture is, of course, more complete when viewed from an overall perspective on maize production. I must also say that the expected El Niño weather event in the 2026-27 summer season comes after two consecutive seasons of favourable production conditions in South Africa’s agriculture.
Depending on how severe the 2026-27 El Niño weather event is and how farmers adjust their planting areas, it is reasonable to expect a decline in the harvest compared to during La Niña rains.
During the 2023-24 season, when a mild mid-summer drought occurred, South Africa’s maize harvest fell by 22% from the previous season to 12.9 million tonnes.
In the current 2025-26 favourable agricultural season, we expect a maize harvest of 16.5 million tonnes, which provides a perspective of how significant that decline was.
In other severe droughts in 2018-19, South Africa’s maize crop fell to an average of 11.8 million tonnes.
The notable decline and one of the most memorable droughts occurred in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons, and South Africa’s maize harvest in that period fell to around 8.9 million tonnes on average.
South Africa’s annual maize consumption is about 12.0 million tonnes, and a smaller harvest meant the country had to import to supplement domestic supplies.
Still, these are early days, and more reliable weather forecast data will be available in the coming months. But the early indications suggest that we are heading into a challenging summer season, rather than the period of abundance we have enjoyed in the past two seasons.