Meat and dairy farmers have been suffering economic setbacks for months due to the restrictions on the movement of livestock in parts of northern KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. This recently became a nationwide issue when China imposed a ban on all South African red meat.
The problem is the requirement that milk from animals in affected areas must be double-pasteurised. Cattle in the affected areas may also not be sold at all.
Commercial and subsistence farmers in the affected parts of KwaZulu-Natal have been unable to sell any livestock since February this year. This has led to the illegal transport of animals and subsequent contamination in other provinces.
Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious disease among cattle. South Africa was once free of this disease as a result of meticulous, nationwide vaccinations.
Over the past decades, however, state veterinary services as well as Onderstepoort Biological Products, which manufactured the vaccine, declined significantly.
The most pressing issue is that the strict measures imposed by the Department of Agriculture are not based on science. While foot-and-mouth disease is deadly and catastrophic for the entire agricultural ecosystem in the Northern Hemisphere, this is not the case in South Africa.
The Minister of Agriculture, Mr John Steenhuisen, recently confirmed in a written reply in Parliament that no cattle died in the latest outbreak and that the disease has not been detected in any sheep or goats. Still, the imposed restrictions apply to all cloven-hoofed animals.
The problem is exacerbated by the high cost of vaccines that are being imported from Botswana, even though South African facilities can produce them at much lower costs. Accreditation remains the major hurdle for these laboratories.
At current prices, it would cost approximately R5,4 billion over three years to once again rid the country of the disease. The solution would only be temporary, though, as buffaloes also carry the disease, and cattle move freely between South Africa and neighbouring countries.
The solution lies in traceability, strategic vaccination, domestic production and accurate scientific information.
Targeted traceability would ensure that restrictions are only imposed on affected farms.
Most importantly, a disease that is not that dangerous is currently being treated as highly dangerous and a potential disaster. South African authorities will have to take the difficult step of informing the international community that South African foot-and-mouth disease differs from the disease they are familiar with.
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