South African maize producers desperate for rain and already in record debt will implore the government to provide guarantees for new bank loans as the worst drought in 23 years leaves farmers short of collateral before the new planting season. While grain producers require debt security, livestock farmers may need cash to pay for feed after dry weather since the end of last year has left grazing lands ravaged, Johannes Möller, president of the Agri SA farmers' lobby, said.The group was gathering information from members as it prepared to initiate talks with the national Treasury and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, he said."We will need assistance one way or the other, because there is no way we can do it by ourselves," said Möller, whose Pretoria-based organisation is the biggest representative of commercial farmers in South Africa."The only party [that] can make up this shortage is the state."He wouldn't put a figure on the money farmers might request.Farmers in Africa's biggest maize producer will reduce next year's planting of the grain to the smallest since 2011 because of poor rains in the main growing regions, according to the Crop Estimates Committee.A strengthening El Niño pattern bringing dry conditions to sub-Saharan Africa has prompted the national weather service to predict below normal rainfall for the next four months."More rain is needed for farmers to plant and for the veld and livestock to recover," the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said this week. ..