South African Grain Information Service endeavors to collate, process, analyse and distribute timeous, accurate data and information relating to the grain and oilseed industries.
Information is released at twelve o’clock on predetermined and approved dates, so as not to give preferential treatment to anybody and to limit possible reactions on markets. Staff, in effect, are not allowed to discuss information, except information related to specific submitted information and that with the parties who are directly involved. Information, however, is not contextualised, nor are any attempts made to predict trends based on this.
Results are compared, as far as possible, with external sources to evaluate its correctness and relevancy and South African Grain Information Service remains unbiased by not being involved in the trading of grain and oilseeds and functioning independently from any parties that submit data to the entity.
The data and information provided by South African Grain Information Service include monthly data on whole grain and oilseeds imports and exports, producer deliveries per province and grain transported as well as data on maize, wheat and oilseed products that have been manufactured, imported and exported.
A weekly bulletin is supplied based on a collection of local and international information, such as prices, stock levels, import parities and so forth and information is also shared weekly about the volumes of wheat and maize that was imported, producer deliveries, intentions to import and export maize as well as import tariffs and parity prices for wheat and maize.
Historic information is also available, with some of this dating back to 1936.
South African Grain Information Service also shares information from other parties, such as the Crop Estimates Committee, Import and Export Information from the South African Revenue Services, average food prices for various products published by Statistics South Africa and economic indicators shared by banks and so forth.
This section on grain crops of South Africa looks at crops grown by subsistence and commercial farmers. These crops are often very suitable ...