South Africa’s next harvest starts with decisions made now

3 days ago

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A strengthening El Niño is raising the stakes for South Africa’s next summer harvest. Decisions about planting, finance and water are being made now. Bultfontein’s experience of earlier droughts offers a local warning, while the risks and preparations differ across the country’s farming regions.

THE PEOPLE | AGRICULTURE & NEWS ANALYSIS | 15 SEPTEMBER 2026

South Africa’s next summer harvest is beginning with decisions made before the first seed goes into the ground: what to plant, how much to spend, and how much risk a farm can carry if useful rain arrives late.

On 10 September, the United States Climate Prediction Center confirmed a strengthening El Niño, with a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event during the northern autumn and winter of 2026/27. For South African agriculture, that warning arrives as summer-crop producers prepare to commit money to the coming season.

The consequences reach beyond any one town. Production decisions feed into national grain supplies, farm employment, transport, livestock feed and household food costs. The immediate exposure is especially important in the summer-rainfall production areas, but its economic effects can travel through the wider food system.

Bultfontein provides one place to examine that exposure. The western Free State has suffered drought before, including the severe 2015/16 season. In the same municipality, recent flooding in Hoopstad has complicated recovery even as attention turns to a potentially hotter, drier summer.

The national question is how to use the preparation time still available. Farmers must make decisions suited to their land, while water authorities, agricultural departments and lenders need to establish what support and operating capacity will actually be available.

The warning has become sharper

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued its latest diagnostic discussion on 10 September. It put the probability of an October–December event exceeding the strength of previous El Niño events since 1950 at 75%, using a three-month Relative Oceanic Niño Index of at least +2.5°C.

That is a forecast of the Pacific event’s strength. It does not assign Bultfontein a 75% probability of crop failure. Rainfall outcomes still depend on how atmospheric conditions develop over southern Africa, and on the distribution of rain within the season.

South Africa’s September seasonal warnings nevertheless give agricultural planning an urgent focus: the prospect of a hotter, drier summer in the summer-rainfall region. The Department of Agriculture issued an El Niño advisory on 2 September, following a wet 2025/26 season that had improved water and soil-moisture conditions.

Farmers therefore face a season with both an advantage and a threat. Moisture carried into planting can help a crop establish. A prolonged hot, dry spell later can erode that advantage. The practical question is how long the protection lasts on a particular farm, under a particular crop, with a particular set of costs already committed.

A national warning, with different regional risks

South Africa does not have one planting date or one rainfall regime. The coming summer-crop season is central to this story; winter crops, irrigated production and perennial crops operate on different calendars and face different combinations of water, heat and cost pressures.

For dryland summer crops, the timing of rain and moisture available in the soil are critical. Irrigated farms also depend on their actual water allocation, delivery infrastructure and pumping capacity. A favourable storage total offers little protection where water cannot reach the crop.

The winter-rainfall areas of the Cape need their own seasonal assessment. A warning for the summer maize belt cannot simply be transferred to the Cape’s winter rainfall or used to attribute every dry spell to El Niño. SAWS has previously emphasised the limited influence of ENSO on South Africa during winter.

National preparation therefore means combining regional forecasts with local conditions and crop requirements. Bultfontein’s experience can inform that work, but cannot stand in for every farm. The common concern is protecting production and the livelihoods linked to it before losses accumulate.

Bultfontein’s drought history shows what is at stake

Bultfontein lies in Tswelopele Local Municipality, in the western Free State’s maize and livestock country. Dryland farming here depends on rain reaching the land at useful intervals. A large dam elsewhere in the province cannot irrigate a field without the infrastructure, allocation and means to deliver that water.

The 2015/16 drought remains a serious historical reference. Western Free State and North West were among its hardest-hit production areas. South Africa’s final commercial maize harvest fell to roughly 7.8 million tonnes, after a season in which dry conditions also reduced planting.

Bultfontein’s relevance is its experience of earlier drought, rather than any claim that it alone faces the coming risk. Across the production regions, farms enter each season with different soil moisture, debt, equipment, crop choices and access to support. El Niño events themselves also produce different local outcomes.

What carries across the years is the sequence of exposure. Before a crop earns anything, somebody has paid for seed, machinery, diesel, fertiliser and labour. Some expenses can be adjusted as conditions develop. Others have already left the bank account.

Rainfall timing then becomes decisive. A season can look less alarming in its total rainfall than it felt in the field. Rain arriving after a vulnerable growth stage may improve the seasonal total while doing little to repair the yield already lost.

This is why a forecast cannot sensibly become one instruction for every farm. Reducing planted area may limit exposure, but it also changes the income available to cover fixed costs. A different cultivar may alter risk, but it must suit local conditions and the available planting window. Every adjustment has a price as well as a purpose.

Flood recovery competes with the next season

The recent Hoopstad flooding illustrates how recovery from one weather event can overlap preparation for another. It is a local example of competing demands on money and infrastructure, rather than evidence that every South African farming district has experienced the same conditions.

SABC’s report showed the R34 between Hoopstad and Wesselsbron under water. Tswelopele’s technical director for infrastructure services, Lebohang Malokase, identified a culvert on the route as a cause of the flooding. He said the municipality had approached public works and obtained contact with a SANRAL route manager to discuss a permanent solution.

That response establishes that officials acknowledged a drainage problem and were pursuing discussions. A completed repair, its specification and its delivery date would establish what protection residents have gained.

There is an economic cost to the interval between the two. Damaged roads complicate deliveries and access. Water entering a home creates replacement expenses. Time spent cleaning and travelling around flooded routes comes from work, school and household routines.

On farms, the same principle applies to drainage damage, delayed fieldwork and repairs after excessive rain. Recovery uses resources that would otherwise be available for the next crop. A farm can emerge from a wet season with improved moisture and less money to absorb another disruption.

Calling the next summer a fresh season can hide that carry-over. The accounts do not restart when the weather changes.

Full dams provide time. Local systems determine how it is used

The investigation behind this article describes a stronger national water-storage position than during the 2015/16 drought. That is a meaningful advantage. Stored water can support supply through dry periods, where the infrastructure and allocations allow it to be used.

Provincial storage figures, however, combine systems serving different places and purposes. They do not describe the condition of every town’s pumps, treatment works, pipelines or backup supply. A household depends on the system connected to its tap.

The water record for Tswelopele also deserves more precision than a blanket declaration of failure.

The Department of Water and Sanitation’s 2023 Free State Blue Drop assessment described strong water-quality performance in the municipality and praised the operation of Hoopstad’s treatment works. It also identified shortcomings, including inadequate process-control staffing at both plants, abstraction above authorised allocations, concerns about flow measurement and missing maintenance records for Bultfontein.

Those are dated findings. They establish questions for a current readiness assessment; they do not establish the quality of water leaving a tap today. The relevant evidence now would be recent laboratory results, operating records, staffing, repairs and demonstrated backup arrangements.

For a town facing a hotter summer, those details have immediate value. Residents need to know whether the system can keep operating through interruptions, where replacement equipment will come from and how shortages will be communicated.

This is also where municipal accountability can be made concrete. A council can publish the work completed since an audit, the defects still open and the person responsible for each repair. That gives residents something they can assess before an emergency.

A farmer can buy seed suited to local conditions. A pensioner cannot individually repair a municipal treatment plant. Preparation has to reach both.

A large harvest and a secure farm are different measures

The national crop picture offers another source of protection. The briefing describes a large 2025/26 maize harvest, with production above domestic annual use. A good harvest can strengthen supplies and help contain pressure on food prices.

It cannot, by itself, guarantee affordable food throughout 2027. Available stocks change with consumption, exports, quality, storage and the next harvest. Prices also respond to developments beyond a single production district.

For producers, the effect of abundance can be complicated. A larger crop can bring in more saleable grain while lower prices reduce the return on each tonne. Whether the result is profitable depends on yield, quality, production costs, financing and the price actually secured.

A farm that harvested well may therefore still be cautious about financing the next crop. One that faced delayed harvesting or quality losses may have less room to manoeuvre than national production totals suggest.

The same distinction applies to livestock. Carrying animals through a dry period requires water and feed. Cutting a herd can reduce immediate pressure, but selling breeding animals affects the enterprise beyond the current summer. Where animal-health restrictions apply, marketing and movement decisions become more complicated still.

None of this justifies announcing a wave of bankruptcies before the season has unfolded. It does explain why judging readiness only by tonnes harvested or dam levels gives an incomplete picture.

The useful measure is how much strain a farm can absorb while continuing to operate.

The consequences reach the national food economy

Across South Africa’s agricultural towns, the harvest supports much more than the person whose name appears on the farm account. The cumulative effect of decisions on many farms matters to the businesses and workers serving those production areas.

A planting decision affects demand for transport, repairs, supplies and contracted work. A difficult season can change when accounts are paid, which equipment is replaced and what households spend locally. The effects reach workers and businesses that have no control over crop choice or rainfall.

Food prices create another connection. A family buying maize meal experiences the market at the shop counter. A farmer experiences it through the price offered for grain and the cost of producing the next tonne. Those pressures can move differently, and at different times.

Protecting food production therefore requires attention to both sides. Consumers need dependable, affordable supplies. Producers need a viable route into the following season. Treating either concern as an inconvenience to the other makes the planning weaker.

What should happen before the first failed crop

The immediate work is specific enough to begin without waiting for certainty about the summer.

Agricultural planning needs to follow local soil moisture and updated regional forecasts alongside the broader El Niño signal. Farmers, agronomists and lenders need realistic assumptions about establishment, yield and the cash required if rain arrives late. Advice about changing cultivars or hectares must be tested against individual farms rather than issued as a universal solution.

Municipalities need to establish the condition of the systems residents will rely on during heat and supply interruptions. That includes maintenance already identified, dependable pumping, water-quality monitoring and practical arrangements for vulnerable households. The Hoopstad flood response also needs a visible account of what happened after the proposed technical discussions.

Provincial agricultural support should be understandable before losses accumulate: what assistance exists, who qualifies, which documents are required and how applications will be handled. A producer trying to preserve a business needs that information while there are still decisions to make.

The public can then judge preparation by delivery. Has the drainage work been completed? Have treatment-plant vacancies been addressed? Are farmers receiving advice relevant to their district? Can an applicant establish where a request for support stands?

These are reasonable questions in September. They become much more expensive questions once a community is already in distress.

The season is still open

South Africa’s next summer harvest has not been decided. Useful rain may arrive, and existing moisture may provide a good start in some districts. Outcomes will vary between regions and farms. Sound decisions, functioning services and timely support can reduce losses even in a difficult season.

That opportunity is the reason to act on the warning now. The country still has time to inspect equipment, repair known defects, test assumptions and make support usable.

By the time a struggling crop becomes a photograph, much of the money has already been spent. Bultfontein’s drought history helps explain why the warning deserves attention. The response now has to reach South Africa’s production regions, with practical decisions made while farmers still have choices.