Worst South Africa Drought in Memory Cuts 2016 Corn Crop 25%
- Area planted with corn is also 25% smaller than in 2015
- Country hit by shortage of rain due to El Nino weather pattern
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South Africa, the largest corn producer on the continent, will probably reap the smallest harvest since 2007 this year after the country suffered the lowest rainfall since records began because of the global El Nino weather pattern.
Growers will probably produce 7.44 million metric tons of corn in the season that ends in April, Marda Scheepers, a spokeswoman for the nation’s Crop Estimates Committee, said by phone Wednesday. That’s 25 percent less than the 9.9 million tons in the previous season and exceeds a 6.1 million-ton median prediction by seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.