Faced with criticism for its decision to exclude maize from the country's biofuels policy, South Africa's government said on December 14 it may reconsider its stance if maize producers increase output.
The government had said it would not include maize in the initial stage of its biofuels strategy, which begins next year, due to fears that there would not be enough maize to supply the bio-ethanol industry and also maintain food security. The use of maize in biofuels production was at one point seen as part of a rescue plan for farmers who have in the past seen surplus harvests push commodity prices lower.
"(The) door is not closed for the production of bio-ethanol from maize," the agriculture department said in a statement. "... it is the responsibility of the industry to produce more maize in order to provide the Minister with the necessary arguments in order to convince cabinet to include maize in the bio-fuels industrial strategy."
The statement followed a meeting between Agriculture and Land's Minister Lulu Xingwana and maize growers umbrella group's, including Grain South Africa. Xingwana said the cabinet did not intend to exclude maize from the biofuels policy as long as it was produced in surplus. She said a bio-fuels task team, charged with helping to develop the country's biofuels strategy, would carry out further investigations into the viability of using maize, provided the country produced more maize than used domestically.
South Africa consumes about 8 million tonnes of maize each year, and the Crop Estimates Committee has forecast production for the 2006/07 season at 7.125 million tonnes.
South African maize farmers have in previous seasons struggled to stay profitable as bumper harvests pushed maize prices to multi-year lows.
