South Africa’s Wheat Harvest Progressing Smoothly

The wheat farmers in South Africa are working hard to complete the harvest for the 2025-26 season. They have already made impressive progress. But the harvest will likely continue into early January 2026, in some areas.

The farmers have delivered about 960,378 tonnes to commercial silos since the start of October 2025, marking the beginning of this new marketing year. This crop was planted at the beginning of May 2025.

This volume delivered so far equals 47% of South Africa’s expected 2025-26 wheat harvest of 2.03 million tonnes. The expected harvest is up 5% from the 2024-25 season.

The annual improvement is boosted by the expected better harvest in the Northern Cape, Free State, Eastern Cape, and Limpopo.

The Western Cape, which accounts for over half of South Africa’s winter wheat production, is expected to experience a mild decline in the harvest this year compared to the 2024-25 season due to unfavourable weather conditions in some parts of the province.

When the Crop Estimates Committee reviewed the harvest this week, they left the wheat production estimate roughly unchanged from last month (down just 0.3%).

As I noted in my previous letters, the potential wheat harvest of 2.03 million tonnes implies that South Africa may need to import approximately 1.74 million tonnes in the 2025-26 season to meet our annual needs. These imports are expected to be down 5% from the 2024-25 season.

The import activity is not expected to be a significant challenge, given ample global wheat supplies.

The International Grains Council forecasts a record 2025-26 global wheat harvest of 827 million tonnes, up 3% from the previous season. These ample global wheat supplies continue to add downward pressure on global wheat prices, which is beneficial to importing countries as South Africa.

An important fact to keep in mind about South Africa is that we have a wheat import tariff, which may minimise the benefit of lower global wheat prices, as it is intended to provide some level of support to domestic producers.

Still, the fact that there are ample global wheat supplies and prices are under pressure supports the view I have long shared here: we are heading towards a continuous moderating path of food price inflation in 2026 in South Africa.

On November 28, 2025, South Africa’s wheat pot price traded around R5,755 per tonne, down 3% from a year ago.

Author: Wandile Sihlobo.

Tags: South Africa, imports, harvest, prices, Production, wheat, farmers