• Zimbabwe took 38% of SA maize exports in 2025-26: Absorbed ∼741,000 MT of South Africa’s 1.95m tonnes shipped by 17 April 2026, double its 5-year 18% average
• 2025-26 SA imports covered Zimbabwe’s 2024-25 shortfall of 180,000–700,000 MT, while Cabinet now projects a 2025/2026 surplus of up to 965,000 MT through March 2027, meaning 2026-27 import need could drop to near zero
•  With Asian demand soft and Zimbabwe potentially self-sufficient, SA missed its 2.4m tonne target by 450,000 MT this season and could see further price pressure as its most reliable buyer exits, with local maize prices already down 30% YoY

Harare- Zimbabwe, once the bread-basket of Africa has accounted for 38% of South Africa's maize exports in the 2025-26 marketing year, absorbing approximately 741,000 metric tonnes out of a total of 1.95 million tonnes exported as of 17 April 2026. This makes Zimbabwe the single largest destination for South African maize in the current season, ahead of Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, and every other regional buyer on the continent.

This is according to the South African Grain Information Service (SAGIS) weekly trade reporting, corroborated by Agbiz Research and agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo.

On 21 April 2026, the day before this marketing year effectively closes, Zimbabwe's Cabinet noted and approved a Second Round Crop Assessment projecting a national cereal surplus of between 550,945 and 964,945 metric tonnes for the 2025/2026 growing season, with total cereal production estimated at 2.74 million metric tonnes. The Cabinet's report cited a 5% growth in the agricultural sector, a 2% maize production increase, and a national grain balance sheet through March 2027 that shows surplus at every consumption scenario modelled.

Two official government datasets, produced one day apart, appear to be in direct contradiction. Zimbabwe is simultaneously the largest buyer of South African maize in the region's most important export season, and a country projecting a grain surplus through the following year. Both facts are true. Understanding why they are both true at the same time, and what happens when they begin to diverge  is the most significant story in Southern Africa's grain trade calendar.

The explanation for the import dependency lies in the timing gap between production seasons and marketing years. South Africa's 2025-26 maize marketing year runs from May 2025 to April 2026, covering the period during which South Africa draws down and exports grain harvested in its 2024-25 summer season. Zimbabwe's import demand that drove the 38% share was generated by the shortfall from Zimbabwe's own 2024-25 growing season, not the one whose results Cabinet presented on 21 April.

Zimbabwe's 2024-25 maize harvest,  the crop grown through the 2024 summer rains and harvested in early 2025,  produced approximately 1.3 million metric tonnes according to the United States Department of Agriculture's Pretoria-based attaché, against an annual consumption requirement of approximately 2 million metric tonnes. ZimStat's Post-Harvest Survey, the authoritative domestic measurement, put actual 2024-25 output at 1,819,819 metric tonnes, higher than the USDA estimate but still below the 2 million tonne consumption benchmark.

The import gap, whether measured at 700,000 or 180,000 metric tonnes depending on which production estimate is used, was the structural demand that Zimbabwe took to South Africa throughout the May 2025 to April 2026 marketing year.

Agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo noted in November 2025 that Zimbabwe would likely need to import approximately 700,000 tonnes in the 2025-26 marketing year to meet annual consumption, and that strong maize exports to Zimbabwe were expected in the first quarter of 2026. That forecast was accurate. By end of January 2026, South Africa had exported 1.5 million tonnes of maize for the season, with approximately 35% going to Zimbabwe. The share subsequently grew to 38% as Asian buyers , Vietnam, Taiwan, and South Korea  pulled back from South African supplies in favour of cheaper global alternatives.

South Africa's seasonal maize export target for 2025-26 was 2.4 million tonnes, but exports as of mid-February stood at approximately 1.6 million tonnes, raising concern among analysts as the marketing year approached its end. The final figure of 1.95 million tonnes by 17 April represents a shortfall of approximately 450,000 metric tonnes against the seasonal forecast , a gap attributed not to supply constraints but to softening global demand, particularly from the Asian markets that normally absorb a significant share of South African maize.

Over the past five years, South Africa has exported roughly 3 million tonnes of maize each year, with Zimbabwe typically accounting for about 18% of annual exports. The 38% share Zimbabwe achieved in 2025-26 is therefore more than double its historical average , a structural shift driven by two simultaneous forces: Zimbabwe's own import need was unusually large following the 2023-24 drought year that produced only 635,000 metric tonnes, and Asia's demand was unusually soft as buyers sourced from cheaper global supplies.

Zimbabwe's elevated share is therefore partly a consequence of being a reliable buyer in a year when the traditional complementary buyers stepped back.

This has an important implication for South Africa's export planning. The African continent has historically been the primary destination for South African maize exports, and Zimbabwe's role as a consistent buyer has been a structural feature of the regional grain trade, but the 2025-26 season exposed a vulnerability: when Asian demand is soft and Zimbabwe is the dominant buyer, South Africa's total export volume is constrained by Zimbabwe's import capacity rather than expanded by global market demand. The 2.4 million tonne forecast required Asian buyers to participate alongside the African market. They did not, and the season closes short by 450,000 tonnes.

The Surplus Projection and What It Means for the 2026-27 Marketing Year

Zimbabwe's Cabinet assessment of a 2025-26 growing season surplus of up to 965,000 metric tonnes , if validated by the ZimStat Post-Harvest Survey , fundamentally changes Zimbabwe's role as a South African export market in the 2026-27 marketing year, which begins in May 2026. A Zimbabwe that is self-sufficient at 2.35 million metric tonnes of maize production against 2 million metric tonnes of annual consumption does not need to absorb 700,000 to 741,000 tonnes of South African exports, it may need to absorb zero, or close to it.

The implications for South Africa are material. Early in the 2025-26 marketing year, Zimbabwe already accounted for 30% of South Africa's initial exports, with the ZimStat forecast suggesting Zimbabwe's 2024-25 maize production at 1.3 million tonnes would leave a significant import gap. If that gap closes or reverses in 2026-27, South Africa must either find alternative buyers at equivalent scale , which in the current global environment of ample and cheap supply from the United States, Argentina, and Brazil means competing aggressively on price , or accept a lower export volume and the corresponding downward pressure on domestic maize prices.

South Africa's maize price has already been under pressure this season. The slow export pace, combined with prospects of a strong new-season South African crop, pushed maize prices down approximately 30% compared to a year ago, adding pressure to local markets. A 2026-27 season in which Zimbabwe is simultaneously exporting from its own surplus and not importing from South Africa would extend that price pressure into a second consecutive marketing year, creating real income stress for South African maize farmers who operate at margins sensitive to the 30% price swing already recorded.

The bilateral grain relationship between Zimbabwe and South Africa has not been uniformly cooperative this season. Zimbabwe's government placed a ban on maize imports earlier in the season, on the back of improved domestic production, reasoning that there were sufficient domestic supplies and that farmers who had received government input support needed protection from import competition. The ban was subsequently reversed or relaxed as the import need became apparent , Zimbabwe's 1.3 to 1.82 million tonne domestic production was insufficient to cover the 2.0 million tonne consumption requirement without imports, and the ban's logic collapsed against the arithmetic of an import gap that reached hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes.

The episode is instructive as policy analysis. Zimbabwe's grain import bans have historically been driven by political pressure to protect smallholder farmers who delivered to the GMB, rather than by accurate assessments of the national supply position. When the policy was introduced, the in-season production estimate suggested sufficiency.

When post-harvest data confirmed a shortfall, the ban became commercially untenable. The Cabinet's surplus announcement for the 2025-26 season will likely trigger a similar policy debate, if production of 2.35 million metric tonnes is confirmed against 2.0 million metric tonnes of consumption, the government will face pressure to ban or restrict imports again to protect the farmers who benefited from Pfumvudza inputs. Whether it does so coherently , allowing strategic imports for GMB buffer stocks while protecting against commercial import flooding , will determine whether the surplus is managed to maximum national benefit or dissipated through policy inconsistency.

Therefore, Zimbabwe's 38% share of South African maize exports in 2025-26 is a peak figure, not a structural new normal. It reflects a one-season confluence of Zimbabwe's unusually large import need and Asia's unusually soft demand, occurring simultaneously in a year when South Africa had ample supply. If Zimbabwe's Cabinet surplus projection is validated , and if the 2026-27 growing season delivers even a fraction of the optimism embedded in the current assessment , Zimbabwe's share of South African maize exports in the next marketing year will fall sharply, potentially to close to zero.

For Zimbabwe, that is an unambiguous positive, a country that grows enough maize to feed itself does not need to spend foreign currency on imports, and the 741,000 metric tonnes absorbed from South Africa in 2025-26 at prevailing prices represents a meaningful forex outflow that a surplus season eliminates. For South Africa's grain farmers, it represents the removal of their most reliable African buyer at a time when global prices are already depressed. The regional grain trade's most important bilateral relationship is approaching an inflection point that neither government has publicly acknowledged but that the SAGIS data and the Cabinet surplus projection have simultaneously put on the table.
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