The Maize Subsector in South Africa: Emerging Policy Issues

Abstract

As in much of Southern and Eastern Africa, the maize marketing system in South Africa is largely controlled by a government parastatal, the Maize Board. Although the past decade has seen several reforms in South Africa’s single channel maize marketing system, market reform has not received the urgent attention that it has brother countries of the region. This is despite evidence that, even in normal rainfall years, large numbers of South African consumers are "food insecure." There is considerable evidence that, despite record maize harvests in the late 1980’s, chronic protein-energy malnutrition is widespread among rural black schoolchildren, affecting 25 to 40 percent of the population (UNICEF, 1989).