South Africa's agricultural sector thrives with $15.1 billion in exports despite US slowdown
South Africa’s agricultural sector hit a new high in 2025, with exports reaching a record $15.1 billion
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South Africa’s agricultural sector hit a new high in 2025, with exports reaching a record $15.1 billion (R240.5 billion), despite a sharp slowdown in shipments to the United States.
According to the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), exports rose 10% from 2024, marking a consecutive year of growth. While shipments to the US fell sharply, accounting for just 4% of total exports, higher demand from other African countries, Asia, and Europe helped keep overall sales at record levels.
Wandile Sihlobo, Chief Economist at Agbiz, said the growth was driven by higher production across fruit, grains, oilseeds, sugarcane, and wine, as well as improvements in port and logistics efficiencies.
"While it's generally a tough environment in global trade, I would say that the South African agricultural sector remained pretty much resilient in terms of exports, reaching that record $15.1 billion. Now, these exports are nicely diverse, also in a number of areas, because about half of our exports still go to the African continent." Sihlobo said.
"And in the African continent, we are largely within the South Africa region. Beyond the African continent, we have Asia and the Middle East collectively, the second largest market, around 17% or so of our products go to that region. And of course, you have the EU being the third most important market that absorbs a number of South African products. And of course, the US, which is part of the Americas, is also as important".
Sihlobo added that despite the impact of US tariffs in the second half of the year, South Africa’s agricultural exports to the US fell by only 3% to around $504 million.
"In the first and second quarter of the year, we did well. In the second quarter, we benefited from that 90-day pause that was there in the US, and of course, it is only in the third and fourth quarters where we began to see the impact of those tariffs in the US".
"If I were to single out the U.S. for a moment, if you look at the South African agriculture exports to the US in 2025, they are down only by 3% at half a billion dollars. That doesn't mean that U.S. tariffs are not biting. They are biting, but I think we benefited from the large volume that we exported in the quarters before that, the first and the second quarter"
mthobisi.nozulela@iol.co.za
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