The river’s maize fell to $20 a Loor — Baidoa and Bakaaro paid $35 for the same sack.
Tomatoes closed at $9 a Jirgaan in all three markets.

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 river and the city have come apart on maize

On 11 September Afgooye maize stood $3 under Bakaaro. On 25 September it stood $15 under — Afgooye fell from $35 to $20 a Loor while Bakaaro climbed from $28 to $35 and Baidoa closed at $35. The same sack, the same fortnight, opposite directions. Tomatoes did the reverse: three markets that were $10, $11 and $7 last issue all closed at $9. Watermelon split by zone — $6 to $3.50 a piece at Afgooye, $2 to $3 at Baidoa — and so did sesame, down 23% on the river and up 67% in Bay. Wheat, imported, moved 0% everywhere it was quoted.

Eight weeks of the Loor: $65 on the river in August, $20 on 25 September

All three markets quote white maize by the Loor. Afgooye opened collection at $55 on 1 August, touched $65 on the 4th, halved as the Gu harvest landed, held $24–30 from 22 August to 11 September, then stepped to $35 on 12 September and down to $22 and $20, where it closed. Bakaaro spent its first month at $28–32, touched $35 on 16 September and closed there. Baidoa, $18 in the first week of August, doubled to $36 on 10 August, has not been below $22 since, and closed at $35. The riverine harvest that halved Afgooye maize in August is still reaching the market at $20 — and it is not reaching Mogadishu or Baidoa at that price. A $15 gap between a production market thirty kilometres from the capital and the capital’s terminal market is the margin of whoever moves the sack. The chart is on page 4 of the designed edition.

Security context, Baidoa

The clashes reported in Baidoa this season fell outside this window — 3 September before it opened, and 28 September after it closed, when heavy fighting resumed inside the city, roads to the hospital were blocked and residents could not move freely. Issue 05’s Baidoa readings will span those days and should be read as a disrupted market, not as the season.

How to read it — the zone split has widened, not closed

Two weeks ago the river sat a quarter under last August and Bay two-thirds above. Now Afgooye maize sits 38% under the Jowhar reference and Baidoa 80% above its own, and the terminal market has moved toward Bay — Bakaaro maize was 38% under last August on 11 September and is 22% under now. FEWS NET’s 31 August update, from its own collection, already put Baidoa sorghum 68% and maize 42% above August 2025. Same direction, two series: Bay and the capital pay more than last year, the river pays less — the widest zone gap we have recorded. The same 2025 bulletin published farm-gate maize at 756,000 SOS per Loor: Afgooye’s market price of $20 a Loor on 25 September sits clearly below that level once converted.

Where we are in the season

FEWS NET’s 31 August update remains the latest published assessment: better-than-anticipated Xagaa rains in July–August; the riverine Gu harvest in Shabelle and Juba average to above average, maize the main contributor; the sorghum zones of Bay, Gedo and Lower Juba below average. The maize spread above is that assessment written as a price: the zone that harvested well is cheap, the zone that did not is dear. 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. The grain priced at $20 is sitting in compounds on the bank.

Cereal growers, riverine: $20 a Loor at Afgooye is the lowest price since collection began, and the same sack fetched $35 in Mogadishu on the same day. Do not clear a compound at $20 to beat the rains — move the grain to higher ground instead, and sell only the share a payment forces you to sell. Where a group of growers can fill one lorry together, the $15 to Bakaaro is the margin to talk to a transporter about.

Cereal growers, Bay: Baidoa maize held $35 and sorghum $25 through the window — but fighting resumed in the city on 28 September, after the window closed. Treat Baidoa’s prices as unsettled; do not hold stock in the city on the strength of them. Household needs and safety first.

Vegetable growers: the Jirgaan is $9 in all three markets — there is no margin in moving tomatoes between them this fortnight. Whatever is planted now for the Deyr goes into a forecast wet season: keep nurseries and low-lying plots away from the bank and the known breach points.

Sesame growers: the two production markets are a dollar apart on a kilogram — $1.00 at Afgooye, $2.00 at Baidoa. Selling into the arrival weeks on the river is the worst timing of the year; if you can store dry and safe, hold.

Pulse growers and traders: cowpea is $0.70 a Koombo at Afgooye, $0.80 at Bakaaro and $1.00 at Baidoa. Unlike last fortnight, there is now a margin between markets — but it is thinner than a sack’s transport.

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.