How the state tripped up on foot-and-mouth disease

Agriculture minister John Steenhuisen’s 10-year plan to tackle the rampant spread of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in South Africa has been welcomed. However, commercial and communal farmers who are watching cattle succumbing to the disease daily say it is too little, too late.

The only province that is not affected by FMD currently is the Northern Cape. The worst affected provinces are KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.

According to Stats SA, the price of red meat rose 12.6% in calendar 2025. The annual loss in meat exports is estimated at R5.6bn. Prices of beef products and milk could rocket if the FMD outbreak is not brought under control quickly.

At a farm level, the impact of the disease can be horrendous. Describing his experiences in KZN, Red Meat Action Group (RAG) director JJ de Villiers says farmers in the province slaughtered up to 400 pregnant heifers to get rid of FMD and some then started planting soybeans and maize.

RAG recently took the law into its own hands, erecting roadblocks in Senekal in the Free State and demanding that local authorities stop the transport of infected cattle.

Dairy cows are the worst hit. In the first major outbreak on dairy farms in the Eastern Cape last year, more than 70 farms and 120,000 animals were affected, says Milk Producers’ Organisation CEO Fanie Ferreira. Bertus van Heerden, chief economist for the organisation, says the impact on the retail market for milk is not visible yet. “This is most likely because it is being absorbed by retailers’ stock levels.”

However, dairy farmers in KZN have reported a reduction of up to 45% in milk supply. In Wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga, Theuns and Louis de Bruin run the Honeymoon Valley cheese shop. They were buying 2,000l of fresh milk, paying R11,500 weekly, but they now get only a few hundred litres. “We have lost a lot of customers, obviously. By 10am it’s finished,” says Theuns.

Johan du Preez, who owns 350 Jersey cows and owns M&M Shop in Volksrust, has been unable to sell raw milk since all his cows were infected. He says setting himself up to pasteurise milk would be too costly. He is waiting to see what the government will do.

“It is no longer a question of if we get FMD, it is when,” says Sylvie Armitage, a small-scale cattle farmer in the Wakkerstroom/Volksrust area. Since February 2025, all auctions within a 150km radius of the farm have been closed. “It’s not just us, it’s the communal farmers who sell their cattle at the weekly markets who are affected,” she says.

Cancelled auctions in the disease management area in KZN have cost AAM Livestock Agents & Auctioneers R381m in the past 11 months, according to AAM director Karen Melouney. She says about 35% of the cattle sold at auction belong to emerging farmers. “Of the R381m, R169m would have been from small-scale farmers.”

Bertus Burgers, who farms on both sides of the KZN/Mpumalanga border and employs 50 people, hoped to auction off about 500 breeding animals in early February. On January 22, BKB Livestock & Auctioneering cancelled the auction. “It is my main income. I already cancelled my bull sale last May. Those two sales are worth between R18m and R20m in income. We live in constant fear of when we are going to see FMD, and we as farmers can’t do anything.”

This is because the Animal Diseases Act of 1984 classifies FMD as a state-controlled disease.

There are different rules for commercial and communal farmers. Commercial farmers get quarantined, but communal farmers don’t have camps or grazing land of their own.

It is no longer a question of if we get FMD, it is when

—  Sylvie Armitage

The vaccine must come through the state. “That’s fine if your government is on top of things, but ours has been caught with its pants properly down and the impact is devastating,” says Melouney.

It seems that the state wants to retain control of policy and implementation but may allow farmers to use their own vets to administer the vaccines, subject to regulation. However, most communal farmers will not be able to afford the vaccine.

Mndendi Mlambo from Wakkerstroom, who owns 50 cows, describes himself as a cattle owner rather than a cattle farmer. He pays a herdsman R1,200 a month to take his cattle to municipal land for grazing seven days a week. Cows grazing on the pavements in rural towns are an interesting spectacle for tourists, but unmanageable in the context of FMD.

The first official recorded FMD outbreak in South Africa was in 1892. In 1903 FMD reappeared in the Cape colony through shipments of cattle from Argentina. Since 1931 the disease has occurred regularly in most Southern African countries.

Buffalo are carriers of FMD but are not infected by it. This is why outbreaks often occur in areas adjacent to game parks. One of the allegations levelled against the government is that it failed to secure the buffer zone around the Kruger National Park.

South Africa lost its FMD-free status in 2019. The current outbreak started in 2021/2022 when infected animals moved from Phalaborwa in Limpopo to KZN. It spread from there and the agriculture ministry says five provinces are now “severely affected”.

Monitoring the movement of animals, together with offering effective vaccines that provide long-lasting immunity, is essential to control the spread of the virus. Farmers accuse the government of failing on both counts.

The first four years of the government’s 10-year plan include provision for “stabilisation, intensive vaccination, strengthened surveillance, enhanced movement control, reinforcement of laboratory capacity and improved communal trade systems”.

However, all this would entail funding and skills, neither of which the government has on the required scale.

In September 2025 the government appointed a task team consisting of state and private vets to advise it on how to tackle FMD. On January 12 this year the task team sent an e-mail to farmers’ organisations stating that not one of its proposals had been adopted and implemented unconditionally. “The task team therefore lacks the authority required to act meaningfully,” it said. “Professional engagement and diplomacy have been exhausted.”

South Africa has been unable to produce a vaccine for FMD since the state-owned Onderstepoort Biological Products facility became dysfunctional. The government has ordered vaccines from the Botswana Vaccine Institute, which are due at the end of January. But one of the criticisms of the Botswana vaccine is that because it is water-based, repeated shots are needed to ensure protection.

Enraged by what they see as the state’s neglect and incompetence, commercial and communal farmers are united in their demand that the law be changed and farmers be allowed to do what is needed. “Give the commercial farmers, the private sector, the keys. Give us the go-ahead. We’ll stop the disease. There is nothing a South African farmer cannot do,” says Burgers.

Steenhuisen’s appointment of an industry co-ordinating council on January 21 is widely seen as a step in the right direction, and subsequent actions to access additional vaccines and to submit South African samples to the UK’s Pirbright Institute for testing for the first time in 14 years have been applauded.

More vaccines have also been ordered from Argentina and Türkiye. Steenhuisen’s spokesperson, Joylene van Wyk, says a local production line is being activated that will initially produce 20,000 doses per week, scaling up to a capacity of 96,000. The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority will supply an additional 5-million doses of vaccine by March 2026.

But farmers are sceptical. “They are saying that the vaccines are coming, but the letter is not signed yet,” says Burgers. “What they are saying, and what they are doing, is not the same. They don’t understand FMD. They don’t know how fast this virus is spreading. I’m desperate for vaccines.”

Steenhuisen has said: “The government cannot do this alone. We need the full strength of the private sector, farmers and veterinarians collaborating with us. We now have a roadmap, and I am accountable for its delivery. If we stay focused and work together, I believe we can restore FMD-free status in less than 10 years.”

It is yet another salutary lesson in how failure to maintain state capacity results in a far greater expense, in terms of time and money, to restore that capacity.