Photo for illustration. (Archive photo: Mariska Nanni/Maroela Media)
The ongoing fight against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in South Africa is not hampered by a lack of science or passion, but by a government that simply does not show up.
This is the core message of Dr. Theo de Jager, chairman of the board of Saai, who describes the state’s “absence” as a greater threat than the virus itself.
While the subcontinent’s most respected experts, veterinarians, officials from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Pirbright Reference Laboratory put their heads together, the Department of Agriculture was nowhere to be seen.
De Jager emphasized that this gap is not just an administrative error, but a systemic collapse.
“The world’s and the subcontinent’s most respected experts on BKS were under one roof to exchange ideas, expertise and science, but the Department of Agriculture was not there.
“Every successful and unsuccessful neighboring state also shared its experience of the disease, and asked for and received advice and help, except for South Africa. Not even the Western Cape, a stone’s throw from the conference facility, was present or involved,” says De Jager.
Dr Theo de Jager, board chairman of Saai. (Photo: Anja van der Merwe)
The frustration among international role players is palpable. De Jager quotes a high-ranking UN official who throws his hands in the air about the situation: “We can sense the tension and frustration. We don’t know how to help if the government itself doesn’t show up!”
According to Saai, this absence is the reality that every farmer and business in South Africa must now learn to live with.
However, the problem goes deeper than the department’s absence from conferences. De Jager points out that senior officials often fail to attend critical meetings, which causes a massive communication gap between the private sector and the state.
He refers to Dr. Danie Odendaal, who before his removal from the ministerial task force, often complained about this indifference.
“Their absence causes communication gaps, an inability to implement any recommendations, and conflict between the experience and expertise in the private sector and the power and material interests of notorious officials in the deep state of agriculture.”
De Jager emphasizes that the minister’s own industry committee shares the same sigh week after week.
“There is never an opportunity to talk to the minister and his senior officials about policy aspects. Meetings become a mutual hotbed because the department is absent.”
Deterioration and delays
The consequences of this inertia are disastrous for the industry. When BKS broke out in the north of KwaZulu-Natal in November 2024, the state had to immediately declare a disease management area. Instead, five months passed before action was taken in March last year – by which time the virus had already spread to neighboring provinces.
Even sending virus samples to the world famous Pirbright laboratory was delayed.
“If the responsible senior officials were not absent, the local virus samples would have been sent to the Pirbright reference laboratory nine months earlier. No pressure or encouragement from industry could move the department to send the samples, and in the absence of the state, the private sector may not do it themselves,” says De Jager.
Where the disease was previously effectively controlled by roadblocks and the cooperation of the army, police and farmers’ associations, De Jager believes that the state has simply disappeared from the scene in the past 15 years.
Even after John Steenhuisen changed the vaccination policy in November last year, a vacuum was left because no new regulations were introduced. The private sector is now trying to formulate concepts and inputs themselves, but without a present department there is no legal framework to validate this.
De Jager says farmers are ready to fill the gaps where the “mush falls on the ground”, simply because they have the most to lose. The only way out now seems to be the legal system.
“Because BKS is a state-controlled disease over which the state has now lost control, the livestock industry remains at the mercy of an absent state.
“The only hope is that the court will confirm the right for the private sector to enter, in the absence of the state, those spaces which are indispensable for the efficient combating of the disease,” says De Jager.