The Numbers Behind the Surplus
South Africa's Crop Estimates Committee forecasts maize production for the 2025/26 season at 16.8 million tonnes and soybeans at 2.8 million tonnes, according to the South African Cereals and Oilseeds Trade Association — well above the country's roughly 12 million tonnes of annual domestic maize consumption, leaving a substantial exportable surplus. Total maize supply for the season is estimated at 15.6 million tonnes against demand of 13.9 million tonnes, with the Supply and Demand Estimates Committee projecting exports to reach just over 2 million tonnes, split between whole maize and processed maize products.
Zambia's turnaround has been even more dramatic. The country's maize harvest is estimated at 3.66 million tonnes, comfortably surpassing domestic consumption of roughly 2.8 million tonnes and pushing Zambia back into net exporter status after a sharply contracted 2024 season. Zambia's soybean sector is showing a similar, if more modest, recovery: the 2025/26 harvest is projected at around 450,000 tonnes according to Commodity Insight Africa analysis reported by Ecofin Agency — a partial rebound from 2024's contraction, though still well below the record 760,000 tonnes achieved in 2023. Domestic processors are expected to crush roughly 300,000 tonnes of that crop into soymeal, leaving an exportable surplus of approximately 80,000 tonnes after feed and food needs are met. Zambia's government has set a considerably more ambitious long-term target: 3 million tonnes of annual soybean production by 2031.
China's Duty Waiver Adds a New Export Lever
South African exporters have received an unexpected boost this year from Beijing. China's decision to waive import duties on African agricultural products could create meaningful new opportunities for South African soybean producers specifically, according to Sacota, potentially opening a market that has historically been dominated by South American suppliers. For a country sitting on a record soybean crop, the timing could hardly be better — though whether South African exporters can move quickly enough to capture meaningful volume before competitors adjust remains an open question.
Why a Surplus Doesn't Automatically Mean Export Success
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The regional trade picture reveals a structural tension that bumper harvests alone can't resolve. Southern African Development Community and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa markets continue importing large volumes of maize, soybean cake, and edible oils from outside the continent, even during seasons when regional producers are sitting on genuine surpluses — a gap regional trade analysts attribute less to production shortfalls and more to trade predictability, logistics costs, and processing competitiveness. Zambia's soybean crushing capacity, for instance, doesn't automatically translate into industrial competitiveness against lower-cost global suppliers like Brazil and Argentina, particularly once regional transport costs into markets like East Africa are factored in.
Zimbabwe illustrates the practical stakes of this dynamic. The country's own maize recovery means it will likely rely less heavily on imports than in the severe 2024/25 season, when Zambia's harvest was down by half and Zimbabwe's by 60 percent — but Zimbabwe is still expected to remain Southern Africa's major maize importer this marketing year, even as neighbouring Zambia and South Africa both sit on exportable surpluses. For South African maize exporters specifically, analysts at Agbiz have noted that Zimbabwe's improving domestic production means the country may prove a less reliable buyer than in recent deficit years, pushing South African traders to look toward other regional and international outlets for their surplus instead.
The Genetically Modified Crop Question Looms Over Trade
An added complication for regional trade flows involves biotechnology policy. Zambia has historically prohibited the cultivation of genetically engineered crops, including GE corn, under its biosafety legislation — a stance partly rooted in concerns about maintaining access to European markets that favour non-GE products. According to USDA reporting, Zambia's biosafety policy is now showing signs of a more science-based shift, a change that could eventually reshape which markets Zambian maize and soybean exports can access, and at what price premium, depending on how the policy ultimately evolves.
What a Genuine Regional Food Basket Would Require
Zambia has long been described as having the ingredients to become a genuine regional food basket: available land, water resources, an established farming base, processing capacity, and proximity to food-deficit markets across SADC and COMESA. What the region's recent seasons make clear is that converting that potential into consistent export earnings requires more than favourable rainfall in any single year — it demands trade predictability, competitive processing infrastructure, and logistics capable of getting grain to buyers at prices that beat imported alternatives. With South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all navigating different points on that spectrum this season, the region's 2025/26 harvest may prove less a story about production abundance and more a test of whether Southern Africa's grain trade infrastructure can finally catch up with its farmland.
