Tight supplies, year-on-year weaker currencies and robust export demand are supporting high maize grain prices across the subregion, which are expected to continue to rise seasonally until early next year when the main harvest period starts. Prospects of a favourable rainy season, driven by an emerging La Niña event, bode well for crop production in 2025 and an upturn in supplies would likely ease current price pressures.

In South Africa, prices of white maize grain reached new record highs in September 2024. The key drivers are a tight domestic supply, following a drought-affected 2024 harvest, and heightened export demand from regional neighbours, also owing to drought-reduced 2024 cereal outputs which pushed up their import needs. Between May and September, the monthly pace of South African white maize exports to neighbouring Southern African countries was about 25 percent higher than in the same months in 2023. Yellow maize prices have increased in the last three months, but at a much slower rate and were about 18 percent below their record high level reached in November 2022. This reflects a better harvest compared to white maize, ample global supplies and declining prices on the international markets. Wholesale wheat prices dipped moderately in September, remaining lower year-on‑year, supported by decreasing prices on the international market and a continued strengthening, albeit modestly, of the national currency. In the net cereal importing countries of Botswana, Eswatini and Lesotho, prices of maize meal (mostly made from white maize) generally firmed up in August, as increasing prices in South Africa filter through to domestic markets. Maize meal prices in Namibia showed more stability in August and September. In Zambia, although maize grain prices remained firm in September and were below their all-time highs of March 2024, they were 40 percent higher year-on-year, underpinned by a 50 percent drop in the domestic maize output compared to the five‑year average. Maize meal prices, however, continued to rise, but at a relatively moderate pace, reaching record highs in September. The value of the national currency was generally stable in August and September, following a persistent depreciation in preceding months, and this could help to limit imported inflation in the coming months. Prices of maize grain in Malawi were stable between August and September, and below peaks reached in January earlier this year. However, the national average price of maize grain remains 14 percent higher year-on-year, supported by the effects of a weak currency and a sharply reduced cereal output in 2024. In Zimbabwe, amid a broadening gap between the official and parallel exchange rates, the national currency was devalued by more than 40 percent in September. This depreciation could fuel price growth, particularly given the increased proportion of imports within national supplies, as the country grapples with the impacts of a reduced 2024 harvest. The monthly food inflation rate jumped to 10 percent in September, up from 2 percent in August. In Mozambique, the annual food inflation rate has hovered around 5 percent since March, with the headline inflation rate remaining at 3 percent over the same period. In response to easing inflationary pressure, the national bank cut the main policy rate in September.