South Africa's crop committee raises 2016 maize forecast 3.3 percent

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa will likely harvest 7.5 million tonnes of maize in 2016, up 3.3 percent from the previous estimate as the yields look better than previously thought for both white and yellow maize, a government agency said on Tuesday. The forecast by the Crop Estimates Committee (CEC), its ninth and final this season, was 25 percent lower than the 9.95 million tonnes reaped last year, due to a severe drought impacting crops. The CEC's estimate was 3.2 percent higher than a Reuters' poll of traders and market analysts that pegged the harvest forecast at 7.3 million tonnes. The crop will comprise an estimated 3.25 million tonnes of white maize, up around 5 percent from the previous estimate, and 4.28 million tonnes of yellow, an increase of 1.9 percent from the last forecast, the CEC said. White Maize, the staple food, doubled in price last year, after South Africa recorded the driest year since records began in 1904, with temperatures reaching historic peaks in January, helping to fuel inflation. The July white maize contract closed 2.65 percent lower on Tuesday at 3,677 rand a tonne, 32 percent below its historic peak of around 5,376 rand a tonne scaled in January, according to Thomson Reuters' data. (Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg; Editing by Ed Stoddard)