The thousands of foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks across South Africa are bringing heartache and economic hardship to rural and farming communities.
As a result, constrained consumers are already facing higher beef and potentially higher dairy prices. Small-scale communal farmers, who own a handful of cattle as their primary source of wealth, could be left destitute if their cows die. Beef and dairy sector farmers could go out of business, leaving many without jobs.
This will be the tragic reality unless there is a sea change in the government’s approach to combating FMD. The government must allow the full involvement of the private sector in the importing, procurement and distribution of vaccines.
To help drive change, FMD Response SA, a group of dairy, pork and beef farmers and industry experts, was formed to ensure it is widely known that there is a simple answer to ending FMD in South Africa. This is it: to halt disease transmission, the country’s 14-million cattle need to be vaccinated within six to eight weeks.
Vaccination in longer windows will fail, as the disease will continue to spread. The government’s plan currently is to vaccinate 80% of the country’s cattle by December.
The reason most of the country’s cattle must be vaccinated within a short timeframe is to ensure enough cattle are immune at once, stopping the virus in its tracks. Otherwise, as vaccine protection wanes after about four to six months, cattle can become reinfected, allowing the virus to keep spreading, resulting in significant costs to farmers and consumers and the animals themselves.
Achieving a 14-million target will require meaningful private sector participation. Commercial farmers have the financial resources, logistical cold-chain capacity, operational capability and strong incentives to support the state in a mass rollout. Thirty-four private veterinarians in KwaZulu-Natal have shown that they can vaccinate up to 50,000 cattle per day. If you extrapolate this, the national target could be met within two months.
Both Brazil and Argentina successfully eliminated FMD outbreaks through decentralised vaccination strategies, enabling the private sector to procure, distribute and administer vaccines.
Time, however, is not on our side. It has already been two months since the first vaccines were administered in South Africa, and the pace of response must accelerate if the disease is to be contained, with millions more cattle on private and communal land still needing to be vaccinated.
There are positive signals. Recent public comments by department of agriculture deputy director-general Dipepeneneng Serage indicate a willingness to allow the private sector to procure vaccines independently, alongside a commitment to facilitate the necessary emergency import permits.
Regarding commercial farmers’ desire to buy vaccines, Serage stated on radio this week that “we will not stand in their way … in fact, we will support them”.
Turning this commitment into reality now depends on removing the key administrative bottleneck: timely access to emergency import permits. Should the private sector be granted swift access to these permits, the vaccination of 14-million cattle within eight weeks becomes entirely achievable.
International precedent offers a clear path forward. Both Brazil and Argentina successfully eliminated FMD outbreaks through decentralised vaccination strategies, enabling the private sector to procure, distribute and administer vaccines. South Africa can and should learn from these examples. Encouragingly, local scientists are set to engage with their Brazilian counterparts in May to exchange insights and best practice.
The cost of inaction or sticking to the current failing approach will be severe. The economic damage from FMD is already significant and will continue to escalate. The financial impact at the farm level is stark.
A commercial dairy farm with 1,000 cows can lose approximately R5,000 in milk production per sick animal during an outbreak — equating to losses of up to R5m per outbreak. Two such outbreaks within a short period could result in R10m in losses, enough to force closure. The knock-on effects are clear: higher milk and cheese prices, job losses, and further strain on already socioeconomically vulnerable rural economies.
Beyond the economics lies the human and animal toll. Farmers are left to watch helplessly as infected cattle suffer — unable to walk or eat, enduring painful lesions and blisters in their mouths. This suffering is preventable.
South Africa has both the knowledge and the capability to end this crisis. Brazil and Argentina have demonstrated what is possible when the government and the private sector work together.
There is no reason this country cannot do the same and, in doing so, avoid the economic collapse of the beef, pork and dairy industries.
• Morphew is a commercial dairy farmer and a steering committee member and spokesperson of FMD Response SA
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