Business Monitor International's Agribusiness service also provides proprietary medium term price forecasts for key commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, sugar, cocoa, coffee, soy and milk; in addition to newly-researched competitive intelligence on leading agribusiness producers, traders and suppliers; in-depth analysis of latest industry developments; and essential industry context, such as the background macroeconomic outlook and the downstream supply chain.

Key Benefits

• Use BMI's independent 5-Year industry forecasts to test other views - a key input for successful planning in dynamic agribusiness markets.

• Apply BMI's medium term commodity price forecasts to assist with budgetary planning and the identification of investment opportunities and potential risks

• Exploit latest competitive intelligence on your competitors and peers in Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa through our company rankings and analysis.

Executive Summary

Since the end of apartheid in the 1990s, the South African government has tried to make improvements in agricultural productivity. The highly regulated nature of the industry has gradually been replaced by a more liberal entity, while subsidies and other notable price supports have been ousted, in favour of more natural market dynamics. This has seen the country emerge as a more competitive producer and exporter of various goods. In BMI's latest South Africa Agribusiness Report we focus on how the industry can further realise its potential during and beyond these testing economic times.

Grains are forecast to perform strongly throughout the outlook period, with wheat set to record a five year output growth rate of 32%. Output will wane slightly in 2009 before picking up again from 2010 and beyond. Consumption will grow at a significantly slower rate, as the price of wheat related products rise, so as to lead consumers to cheaper staple alternatives. Corn is the most widely produced grain with each of the last two harvests producing bumper crops. We find it unlikely that we will witness a third consecutive year of output growth in 2009, although beyond this we see solid pick up in both supply and demand contributing to growth of 19.89% and 10.89% respectively to 2013.

The strength of corn production in South Africa in 2008 was boosted by robust exports to neighbouring Zimbabwe, which has emerged as the biggest export market for South African corn. As Zimbabwe deals with chronic food insecurity - brought about by drought, hyper-inflation and mass displacement - it has imported nearly half a million tonnes of corn from its neighbour.

Kenya, suffering from its own socioeconomic problems, has also had to import 139,046 tonnes of South African corn since the beginning of the current crop season which began in May 2008; we believe such fundamentals will underscore future producer incentives, as well as the strong performance of domestic poultry production.

Despite the gains made in agricultural productivity in recent years, there remain various issues counterproductive to the further development of the industry. Infrastructure is of poor quality and in urgent need of modernisation if South Africa is to alleviate its reliance on food aid to feed the 40% of the population, who are unemployed and living in poverty. There are claims coming from increasingly dissatisfied factions in the predominantly small hold rural community that the government has not invested adequately enough to improve this situation, instead becoming complacent as the food aid rolls in. Subsequently, transportation and water facilities among other things are particularly underdeveloped, to the detriment of the majority.

The industry is classified as exhibiting typical dual economy characteristics; a local subsistence sector juxtaposed with a well developed commercial sector. The fact that large-scale commercial farming is controlled by a white minority will do little to quell the unrest of the majority population who characterise small-scale and subsistence production. Increasingly, capital intensive production is likely to prevail, while the jobs in labour intensive farming become obsolete, potentially resulting in growing unemployment and civil unrest; racial tension is never far from the surface.

However, South Africa's agricultural season runs counter-cyclical to that witnessed in the Northern Hemisphere, allowing it to facilitate timely exports to EU and US markets. In addition to traditional exports, the region's more niche products may prove to be more popular among health conscious consumers at home and abroad. Rooibos red tea, ostrich meat and biltong are examples of local fair that are becoming increasingly desirable throughout the world.

Chapter - Executive Summary

Chapter - SWOT Analysis

France Agricultural SWOT

Chapter - Industry Business Environment Overview

Market Overview

Chapter - Supply Demand Analysis

South Africa Rice Outlook

Table: South Africa Rice Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Rice Consumption & Trade

Industry Forecast ''“ South Africa Livestock Outlook

Industry Forecast ''“ South Africa Livestock Outlook

Table: South Africa Poultry Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Pork Production & Consumption

Table: South Africa Beef & Veal Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Poultry Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Pork Production & Consumption

Table: South Africa Beef & Veal Production, Consumption & Trade

Industry Forecast ''“ South Africa Grains Outlook

Industry Forecast ''“ South Africa Grains Outlook

Table: South Africa Wheat Production & Consumption

Table: South Africa Corn Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Barley Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Sorghum Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Wheat Production & Consumption

Table: South Africa Corn Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Barley Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Sorghum Production, Consumption & Trade

Industry Forecast ''“ South Africa Sugar Outlook

Table: South Africa Sugar Production, Consumption & Trade

Table: South Africa Sugar Production, Consumption & Trade

Chapter - Competitive Landscape

Table: Agricultural Commodity Producers & Traders

Table: Agribusiness Suppliers

Table: Integrated Agricultural Producers

Chapter - Market Strategy - Grains Update

Corn

Table: Corn

Soybean

Table: Soybean

Rice

Table: Rice

Wheat

Table: Wheat

Chapter - Market Strategy Softs Update

Cocoa

Table: Cocoa

Coffee

Table Coffee

Milk

Table: Milk

Sugar

Table: Sugar

Chapter - Downstream Supply Chain Analysis

Industry Forecast Scenario - Food

Table: South Africa Food Consumption Indicators -- Historical Data & Forecasts

Trade

Table: South Africa Food, Drink & Tobacco Sectoral Trade Indicators (US$mn) -- Historical Data & Forecasts

Canned Food

Table: South Africa Canned Food Value/Volume Sales -- Historical Data & Forecasts

Confectionery

Table: South Africa Confectionary Value/Volume Sales -- Historical Data & Forecasts

Industry Forecast Scenario ''“ Retail

Table: South Africa MGR Sector Value Sales by Format (US$bn) -- Historical Data & Forecasts

Table: Grocery Retail Sales By Format (%) -- Historical Data & Forecasts

Economic Activity

Table: South Africa - Economic Activity

Chapter - BMI Forecast Modelling

How We Generate Our Industry Forecasts