The jerry can is back at $10: cherry tomatoes doubled in a fortnight at Afgooye and Bakaaro.
White maize at Afgooye held $25–30 a Loor — the August fall has stopped.

How to read the tables

First and Latest are the recorded closing price on the first and last day of the window; Range is the lowest and highest quote inside it. ▲ marks a price that rose; ▼ a price that fell. Read the colour from your side of the trade: a rising price favours the farmer or trader with produce to sell, a falling price favours the buyer stocking up.

The harvest fall has moved from maize to sesame

Last issue, maize halved at Afgooye while sesame rose a third. This fortnight the roles swapped: maize held $25–30 a Loor for fourteen days, and sesame — planted with the Gu and cut in late August — fell 20% at Afgooye and 25% at Baidoa as it reached the market. Both production markets, both directions, the same mechanism: supply arriving in one crop at a time. Wheat, imported, moved 0% at Afgooye and Bakaaro.

Six weeks of the Jirgaan: $12, then $3.50, then $11

All three markets quote cherry tomatoes by the 20-litre jerry can. Bakaaro opened Issue 01 at $12 on 4 August, crashed to $3.50 by the 12th, and has now climbed back to $11. Afgooye doubled from $5 to $10 in the last week of the window; Baidoa has been the volatile line throughout — $2 in mid-August, $11 on 8 September, $7 at the close. The Gu tomato crop is finished; what reaches the market now is the tail of it. A grower who plants for the Deyr is planting into the high side of this cycle — and, on the river, into an October–December forecast that names 2023 as its analogue year. The chart is on page 4 of the designed edition.

Security context, Baidoa

Renewed clashes on the outskirts of Baidoa on 3 September, with residents leaving homes and casualties reported at the city’s hospital, fell inside the first week of this window. Baidoa’s readings span that day: a maize price rising through a disrupted market reflects thin supply and constrained trade together, not the season alone, and is not a planning signal.

How to read it — and a second opinion

The split by zone is now a month old and has not closed. On the river and at the terminal market, maize sits a quarter to a third under last August; in Bay it sits two-thirds above. FEWS NET’s 31 August update, from its own collection, puts Baidoa sorghum 68% and maize 42% above August 2025. Two independent series, same direction, comparable size. The same 2025 bulletin published farm-gate maize at 756,000 SOS per Loor: Afgooye’s market price of $25 a Loor on 11 September still sits at or below that level once converted.

Where we are in the season

FEWS NET’s 31 August update records better-than-anticipated Xagaa rains and puts the riverine Gu harvest in Shabelle and Juba at average to above average — total cereal output above the 1995–2025 long-term average, maize the main contributor — while the sorghum zones of Bay, Gedo and Lower Juba came in below average. Looking forward: ICPAC’s 18 August outlook gives a 90% chance of enhanced October–December rainfall over central and southern Somalia as El Niño strengthens, with 2023 as the analogue year. FEWS NET warns that extreme, widespread flooding in the southern riverine and agropastoral zones would carry a credible risk of Famine (IPC Phase 5) from October. On 12 September the Somali Disaster Management Agency named 29 districts at high flood risk — Afgooye, Marka, Balcad, Jowhar, Baidoa and Mogadishu among them.

Vegetable growers, riverine: the Jirgaan is back at $10 in Afgooye and $11 in Bakaaro because the Gu crop is finished and Xagaa supply is thin. Whatever you plant now for the Deyr is planted into a forecast wet season: keep nurseries and low-lying plots away from the bank and the known breach points, and be ready to move seedlings.

Cereal growers, riverine: maize has held $25–30 a Loor for two weeks — the August fall is over. If you are holding grain in a compound near the river, the flood forecast now matters more than the price. Move stored grain to higher ground before October, and sell only the share a payment forces you to sell.

Cereal growers, Bay: Baidoa maize is the dearest in our three markets at $32.40 — but trade around the city was disrupted again on 3 September. Treat Baidoa’s prices as unsettled; do not hold stock in the city on the strength of them. Household needs and safety first.

Sesame growers: the price is falling in both production markets as the harvest lands — exactly what maize did in August. Selling into the arrival week is the worst timing of the year; if you can store dry and safe, hold.

Pulse traders: cowpea and mung bean sit at $1.00 a Koombo in all three markets. There is no margin in moving pulses between them this fortnight.

Based on price observation only. Not agronomic advice; no chemical, pesticide or veterinary guidance is given here. Flood guidance follows the Somali Disaster Management Agency’s 12 September advice; monitor official SWALIM and SoDMA alerts.