Plans and strategies for disease-control tabled

The fact that nearly 300 people across the agricultural value chain attended the recent footand-mouth disease (FMD) information day in Bothaville underscored how seriously the industry took the ongoing outbreaks of the disease.

This was according to Gerhard Schutte, chairperson of South Africa’s National Animal Health Forum.

“The objective of the meeting was to discuss the extent of the issue and the way forward. Although no concrete decisions were taken at the meeting, the plans and strategies tabled will be communicated shortly to the livestock industry as a whole.

“Some of the most pressing issues that emerged from the discussions were the underperformance of the state in terms of containing and preventing the disease, possible on-farm vaccination of livestock against FMD, and vaccinations in feedlots,” he said.

According to Schutte, the industry representatives had made it abundantly clear that merely talking about the disease was no longer sufficient, and that the time had come to take strong and effective action in the fight against the disease.

It was obvious from the discussions that affected parties needed faster decision-making processes from government, the implementation of sufficient quarantine infrastructure, and movement control, he said.

Kobus Bester, a beef cattle producer near Ventersdorp, told Farmer’s Weekly after the meeting that, in his opinion, a lack of leadership was the biggest hurdle in the fight against FMD.

He took issue with the fact that very little, if anything, had been done so far in North West’s FMDaffected areas in terms of inspections, quarantine, physical separation of infected animals, and vaccination of infected animals.

Bester was reacting to the admission of Dr Mpho Maya, director of animal health at the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, that the disease was “a big mess”, and a nightmare for her. Bester said this would not have been the case if the department had adhered to the letter of the law pertaining to the prevention and management of state-controlled diseases, including FMD.

“As a farmer, I’m very concerned about the longterm effect of government’s ineptitude in terms of managing FMD in the livestock production industry,” he added. – Annelie Coleman