The Minister of Agriculture, John Steenhuisen, has urged unity among agricultural groups as threats of legal action against the Department could derail the rollout of vaccines to address the current Foot-and-Mouth (FMD) disease crisis among the country’s livestock.
It comes after Sakeliga, SAAI and Free State Agriculture recently sent the Department a legal letter demanding that livestock owners should be allowed to privately procure and administer vaccines.
In a statement last week, SAAI contends that the operational response to Foot-and-Mouth Disease has remained fragmented, slow and structurally incapable of matching the scale and pace of the outbreak.
CEO Francois Rossouw says vaccine shortages are caused by the single buyer-supplier model adopted by the Minister and his department, which is resulting in uncertainty around supply.
He argues there is regulatory paralysis around permits and authorisations, contradictory messaging to farmers, and a widening gap between public announcements and practical implementation on farms.
But Steenhuisen says Foot-and-mouth disease is a controlled animal disease governed strictly by the Animal Diseases Act, 1984 (Act No. 35 of 1984), and he is obliged to follow the law in this regard.
He says the threat of litigation will only exacerbate the challenges faced.
In mid-January, Steenhuisen announced a 10-year plan to tackle FMD, which included clear immediate, medium- and long-term timeframes. It marks the first time in 30 years that the State has a clear roadmap to defeat FMD.
The State has already acquired, monitored and administered two million vaccines from the Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) to date.
In addition, the issuing of permits for private companies to import vaccines, as local agents, has already commenced.
Import permits for the Dollvet vaccine were issued to Dunevax, and an additional import permit to import the Biogenesis Bag6 vaccine is imminent.
However, the department warns that this progress is now at risk. The threatened court action could well derail the purchasing and rollout of vaccines while the Saai/Sakeliga/Free State Agriculture case moves through the court process and the department waits to obtain a clear directive from the court in this matter.
The department has maintained that claims proposing a vaccine-free-for-all are short-sighted and reckless and fly in the face of established international and local precedents for disease control.
“We have already seen the disastrous effects of unfettered access to vaccines that have been illegally imported into KwaZulu-Natal by certain farmers and the serious risk this has posed.”
Steenhuisen says the private sector, industry bodies and others have been included in every step of the way, from the initial lekgotla on FMD to the Ministerial Task Team and now also in the FMD Industry Coordination Council.
The department has furthermore already committed to working with private veterinarians and animal technicians as the vaccine rollout proceeds.
“We urge the farming community to be wary of promises by lobby groups attempting to profit from the hardships farmers are currently enduring. These actions threaten a scientific framework designed to ensure the country wins the war against FMD once and for all.
“Now is not the time for distraction: what we need now is a united and full focus on dealing with the current crisis and rolling out with scale and fast track our national strategy on Foot and Mouth Disease containment. Once the immediate crisis has passed, organisations can then indulge in all manner of litigation. But in the immediate time, we must in move in a unified manner and with the speed and determination to contain the current outbreak. This is the way we will win the war against FMD.”
Meanwhile, a senior lecturer in the Department of Production Animal Studies in the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria, Dr Rebone Moerane, says the FMD situation in the country is a long-time coming, and reflects directly on the government’s failure to give due recognition to the veterinary profession.
He says the initial FMD cases recorded between 2019 and 2022 could not be contained because of ineffective veterinary services.
“Had we declared the FMD outbreak a “disaster” back in 2019, we would have had ample funds and resources to contain the disease and compensate farmers. The Minister of Agriculture and others seem to be proud that more than R1,8 billion could be spent on procuring vaccines, yet it would have probably cost less than R100 million to cull FMD-positive herds and compensate farmers accordingly.”
The current foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak has resulted in an estimated R5.6 billion in lost export revenue for the livestock industry.
