Dr. Theo de Jager (Photo: Reint Dykema)
According to Saai, the latest court and costs order against John Steenhuisen, minister of agriculture, in the urgent legal case regarding the control of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine, has once again exposed the gulf between state bureaucracy and the reality on farms.
The case was brought by Saai, Sakeliga and Free State Agriculture against the minister, the director general and the director of animal health regarding state control of the vaccine.
According to dr. Theo de Jager, chairman of the board of Saai, shows the court order how far the public service and farmers’ reality have moved apart.
“The court order and accompanying costs order against the minister of agriculture showed anew how far the bureaucratic world of the public service, and the seriousness and urgency of livestock farming, are removed from each other.”
Saai brought an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court, after court-prescribed mediation with the government regarding the foot-and-mouth vaccine failed. The organizations want to prevent the state from blocking private acquisition and administration of registered or authorized FMD vaccine or interfering with private import agreements.
According to the organizations, the application is the first phase of their legal strategy and focuses on an interdict against state interference. They argue that the minister has not provided a legal basis for the ban on private vaccine procurement and administration, and that state interference has already caused great uncertainty and production losses in the agricultural sector.
If the application is successful, farmers and livestock owners will be able to have their own animals vaccinated with their own resources, provided the necessary reporting is submitted. A review application as the second phase of the process will follow later.
(Photo: Janice du Plessis/Maroela Media)
De Jager says farmers are already suffering great financial damage while the department is slow to act. “While every day more farms fail financially, after three months the minister brings a draft framework for action as his solution to the court.”
According to Saai, the time that has passed since the industry tried to help the department with a vaccination scheme is devastating for many farmers.
“The more than three months since the agricultural industry tried to help the department with the content of the vaccination scheme has been unaffordably expensive, with hundreds of dairies, stud breeders, commercial herds and small-scale farmers sitting with losses from which they cannot recover,” says De Jager.
However, Saai welcomes that the court has now set strict deadlines for the minister. If the minister wants to promulgate a vaccination scheme, it must be done before 17 April. The order also creates an opportunity for farmers and other stakeholders to provide input on the final scheme.
The organization says that the case went to court, after the minister could not provide legal grounds for his insistence that the state should control all aspects of the vaccination campaign for more than a month.
According to Saai, it is now clear that these legal grounds do not exist and that the approach is rather ideologically motivated.
“It is now clear that those legal grounds do not exist, but are modeled on an ideological starting point of central state control rather than private initiative,” said De Jager.
He warns that total state control has plunged the livestock industry into a serious existential crisis and that Saai and its network partners want to prevent central state control from being presented as the only solution.
- The minister has been approached for comment.