The March contract for white maize added almost 2.6 percent to a new record of 4,781 rand a tonne while the same contract for the yellow variety climbed 1.8 percent to 3,677 rand a tonne.
Prices for white maize, the staple crop that provides much of the caloric intake for South Africa's lower-income households, more than doubled in 2015 while those for yellow maize, used for animal feed, rose around 70 percent last year.
“We are past optimal planting times in much of the Free State province and North West. The guys cannot plant because it is too dry,” said one local maize trader, referring to the key growing areas in the western part of the maize belt.
“Even the crop that has been planted is suffering in this heat,” he added.
The searing drought has been exacerbated by an El Nino weather system, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that occurs every few years with global consequences.
