Farmers plan to increase the area under canola to 166 500 hectares this 2025-26 season. Photo: Marco Longari/Getty Images
Many crops and their related value chains have shown dramatic progress in recent years. This should inspire further growth in this sector.
I often write about South Africa’s soybean success story, involving an increase from 67 700 tonnes in the 1993-94 production season to an expected 2.3 million tonnes in 2024-25. This, in turn, has been driven by an increase in the demand for high-protein food, particularly poultry products.
But soybeans aren’t the only winners in South Africa’s vegetable oils cluster. Canola is also an agricultural success story.
Since South African farmers planted the crop commercially on 17 000 hectares in 1998-99, the area has increased to an estimated 165 750 hectares in 2024-25. For the new season of 2025-26, the farmers plan to increase the area to 166 500 hectares.
Like soybeans, the catalyst behind the increase in canola plantings is a rise in domestic demand for, and use of, oils and oilcake. South Africa is now a net canola exporter, having recently exported to countries such as Germany and Belgium.
There has been a switch in traditional winter wheat and barley-growing areas to canola because of the firm demand and the price competitiveness. Canola is a winter crop, hence, production is primarily in the Western Cape, a winter rainfall region.
The farmers intend to plant 166 500 hectares, up by 0.5% from the previous season. If we assume relatively favourable weather conditions and a decent yield, applying a five-year average yield of 1 89 tonnes a hectare, South Africa looks set to harvest 314 685 tonnes, up 9% from the previous season. This could be a fresh high.
Admittedly, it is still too early to tell with certainty where the canola crop harvest will be and whether farmers will manage to plant the area they intend to. The key determinant will be the weather conditions. Fortunately, the weather has turned positive, promising some showers in the Western Cape in the last two weeks of May. Under this assumption, we can remain optimistic.
Putting the current weather forecasts aside, I think it’s fair to say that canola is one of the success stories of South African agriculture, belonging in the same category as the soybean industry and many of our fruits.
From now on, the objective is to see increases in various commodities, such as canola, and general improvement in agriculture in the parts of the country that haven’t been part of the success story, like the former homelands.
But for that to materialise, we need coordinated support and effective collaboration between the government and business. The government will need to do its part to improve land governance, while leaning on commodity associations for support in unlocking the agricultural value of these regions at the periphery of South Africa’s agricultural achievers.
This is an important step, not only for crops and fruits, but also for livestock and the poultry industries, which are already the key value chains with better penetration in the former homelands regions.
Again, as I have said several times, the effort to realise this ambition does not require new planting. We already have the Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan, which is broadly embraced by agricultural stakeholders and other social partners and was co-created by all.
The plan seeks to improve South Africa’s agriculture by unlocking various hindrances in key value chains and takes a commodity-specific approach. Importantly, it is also clear on what value chains could thrive in multiple regions. What is left is for it to be fully implemented.
My book, A Country of Two Agricultures, advances this ambition and clearly states South Africa’s policy approaches to drive progress in the sector.
The success of South Africa’s canola industry should inspire others in the agricultural sector.
Wandile Sihlobo is the chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa.