Price Transmission of Tomatoes in South Africa’s Five Major Fresh Produce Markets: Vector Autoregressive Model

Rank	Country	Production (Tonnes)	% of global tomato production
1	China	68 241 811	36.7
2	India	20 694 000	11.1
3	Turkey	13 000 000	7.0
4	United States	10 199 753	5.5
5	Egypt	6 275 444	3.4
6	Italy	6 136 380	3.3
7	Mexico	4 207 889	2.3
8	Brazil	3 809 986	2.0
9	Nigeria	3 684 566	2.0
10	Spain	3 651 940	2.0

[i] Source: FAOSTAT, 2022.

Table 2.

Global tomato production by continent

Continent	Production of tomatoes based on continent in 2022	% of world production
Asia	116 993 632	62.62
America	24 445 972	13.08
Europe	22 810 698	12.20
Africa	22 228 893	11.89
Oceania	342 021	0.18

[i] Source: FAOSTAT, 2022.

Table 3.

Descriptive statistics of the five fresh produce markets on their price per ton for tomatoes in 2019–2024

Variables	Observations	Mean	Std. Dev	Min	Max
Johannesburg	72	9 226.68	3 044.77	4 525.69	19 810.40
Tshwane	72	9 143.89	2 806.65	4 707.61	18 138.69
Bloemfontein	72	10 178.21	3 355.72	4 796.30	23 387.15
Cape Town	72	9 227.30	2 788.07	4 400.00	16 910.14
Durban	72	9 088.53	2 891.60	4 500.00	17 620.26

[i] Source: own elaboration.

Tomato prices of five fresh produce markets in 2019–2024
Source: own elaboration.

Table 4.

Augmented Dickey-Fuller test

Variable	Level form		First difference
Variable	Test statistic	5% Critical value	Test statistic	5% Critical value
Johannesburg	−4.875***	−2.913	−9.356***	−2.914
Tshwane	−4.932***	−2.913	−9.378***	−2.913
Bloemfontein	−5.140***	−2.913	−9.837***	−2.913
Cape Town	−4.688***	−2.913	−9.122***	−2.915
Durban	−5.313***	−2.913	−9.984***	−2.917

[i] Source: own elaboration.

Table 5.

VAR lag length results

Lag	p	FPE	AIC	HQIC	SBIC
0		1.5e+30	83.648	83.713	83.812*
1	0.000	8.7e+29*	83.128*	83.516*	84.108
2	0.122	1.1e+30	83.373	84.084	85.168
3	0.014	1.3e30	83.476	84.510	86.087
4	0.000	9.8e+29	83.147	84.505	86.574

[i] Source: own elaboration.

Table 6.

Johansen cointegration results

Maximum rank	Trace Test			Maximum Eigenvalue Test
Maximum rank	Eigenvalue	Trace statistics	5% critical value	Maximum Eigenvalue Statistics	5% Critical Value
0		185.129**	68.52	60.540**	33.46
1	0.574	124.589**	47.21	45.2556**	27.07
2	0.471	79.333**	29.68	29.921**	20.97
3	0.344	49.412**	15.41	26.495**	14.07
4	0.311	22.918**	3.76	22.918**	3.76
5	0.276

[i] Source: own elaboration.

Table 7.

Results of the Vector Autoregression Model

Regressors	JHB average tomato price	Tshwane average tomato price	Bloem average tomato price	CPT average tomato price	DBN average tomato price
JHB average tomato price (−1)	(1.868) [0.012]**	(1.540) [0.024]**	(2.200) [0.006]***	(1.329) [0.051]*	(1.549) [0.034]**
JHB average tomato price (−2)	(1.115) [0.204]	(0.931) [0.253]	(1.065) [0.267]	(1.193) [0.138]	(0.581) [0.494]
Tshwane average tomato price (−1)	(−0.265) [0.739]	(−0119) [0.871]	(−0.680) {[0.431]	−0.494 [0.499]	(−0.464) [0.553]
Tshwane average tomato price (−2)	(−0.254) {[0.786]	(−0.325) [0.709]	(0.061) [0.952]	(−0.643) [0.454]	(0.088) [0.923]
Bloem average tomato price (−1)	(−0.760) [0.028]**	(−0.791) [0.013]**	(−0.640) [0.089]*	(−0.422) [0.184]	(−0.688) [0.044]**
Bloem average tomato price (−2)	(−0.749) [0.067]*	(−0.658) [0.083]*	(−0.806) [0.071]*	(−0.319) [0.395]	(−0.499) [0.206]
CPT average tomato price (−1)	−(0.124) [0.591]	(0.082) [0.701]	(0.135) [0.591]	(0.351) [0.097]*	(0.055) [0.807]
CPT average tomato price (−2)	(−0.243) [0.376]	(−0.189) [0.458]	(−0.09) [0.762]	(−0.110) [0.662]	(−0.156) [0.556]
DBN average tomato price (−1)	(−0.270) [0.545]	(0.099) [0.810]	(−0.493) [0.308]	(−0.274) [0.502]	(0.010) [0.981]
DBN average tomato price (−2)	(0.201) [0.690]	(0.312) [0.521]	(−0.063) [0.913]	(−0.058) [0.904]	(0.052) [0.918]

(.), [.] represents coefficient and P-value respectively.

** significant at 1%,

** significant at 5%,

* significant at 10%.

Source: own elaboration.

Table 8.

VAR’s Lagrange-Multiplier test

Lag	P-value
1	0.416
2	0.603

[i] Source: own elaboration.

Table 9.

Jarque-Bera test

Variable	P-value
Johannesburg	0.942
Tshwane	0.768
Bloemfontein	0.733
Cape Town	0.865
Durban	0.270
All	0.939

[i] Source: own elaboration.

Table 10.

Eigenvalue stability condition

Eingen value	Modulus
0.518173 + 0.2788821i	0.588454
0.518179 – 0.2788821i	0.588454
0.2597886	0.259789
0.2058214	0.205821
−0.05094438	0.050944

[i] Source: own elaboration.

Results of the Impulse Response Function
Source: own elaboration.

References

Authors

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17306/j.jard.2026.1.00007r1 | Journal eISSN: 1899-5772 | Journal ISSN: 1899-5241

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Language: English

Page range: 67 - 78

Accepted on: Mar 17, 2026

Published on: Feb 21, 2026

Published by: Poznań University of Life Science

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

Keywords:

price transmission,

tomato price,

vector autoregression,

impulse response function,

market integration

Related subjects:

Business and economics,

Political economics,

Political economics, other,

Business management,

Business management, other,

Life sciences,

Life sciences, other,

Social sciences,

Political science,

Political science, other

© 2026 Mamakie Lungwana, Joseph Kau, Solly Molepo, Buhlebemvelo Dube, Nokwanele Mabhunu, Lucas Moswane, published by Poznań University of Life Science
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 79 (2026): Issue 1 (February 2026)

Price Transmission of Tomatoes in South Africa’s Five Major Fresh Produce Markets: Vector Autoregressive Model

Figures & Tables

Table 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

Fig. 1.

Table 4.

Table 5.

Table 6.

Table 7.

Table 8.

Table 9.

Table 10.

Fig. 2.

Paradigm

My account