By Lloyd Phillips
South Africa’s livestock value chain is still reeling from news of the foot-and-mouth (FMD) outbreak at Karan Beef’s Heidelberg feedlot. The Free State is determined to keep this disease outside its borders. Farmers there are urged to act instead of abdicating responsibility.
It has been a mere eight months since the Free State regained its foot-and-mouth-free status. Yet, like a wolf prowling at the door, this disease is in four of the Free State’s neighbouring provinces, namely the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng.
Considering this great risk and of the potentially devastating socio-economic consequences for its members should it materialise, leaders of the Free State Agriculture (FSA) association are loudly calling out: “Keep the Free State foot-and-mouth disease-free!”
Francois Wilken, FSA’s president, says state authorities responsible for ensuring animal health cannot and, in some cases, even will not ensure that FMD in South Africa is brought under control.
“Over time the farmers have abdicated their control to officials who do not understand the challenges and financial impact that farmers experience,” Wilken says.
Friedl von Maltitz, FSA’s vice-president, adds: “The impact of a crisis like foot-and-mouth is first and foremost on the primary producer who suddenly has to absorb financial challenges and losses, sometimes with irreparable consequences. For the role-players higher up, the impact only comes later or perhaps never at all.”
Unity is power
FSA wants Free State farmers to return to organising themselves at grassroots. There must be direct engagements and strategising together followed by meaningful collaboration to achieve impactful favourable outcomes.
Wilken urges: “Start with yourself, with your neighbour, with your district. Producers must focus on what they themselves can manage. Get more organised control over your district regarding what goes in and out of each farm. The state and law enforcers do not have the will to enter the struggle to stop the unauthorised movements and transport of communal and other livestock. Producers must use their unity and power at ground level to apply constructive pressure to try to prevent these unauthorised livestock movements”.
FSA points out that what will also hopefully help keep the foot-and-mouth wolf from bounding into the Free State is for all the province’s livestock producers to start taking farm biosecurity and livestock traceability extremely seriously. For this purpose, producers are urged to invest in AIMS (Animal Identification, Movement and Safety) tags for each of their livestock, and that must be used in conjunction with ID-Scan technology.
“Register your farm for free on the RMIS (Red Meat Industry Services) system and have your property geo-fenced through this. This helps confirm the origin of your animals and helps combat stock theft.
Wilken explains in light of the threat of foot-and-mouth, auctions, feedlots and abattoirs in South Africa’s formal livestock value chain are understandably protecting their interests by increasingly sourcing animals from only confirmed foot-and-mouth-free suppliers. This means livestock producers who cannot provide the traceable disease-free status of their marketable animals will find it increasingly difficult to access these formal markets.
“ID-Scan has made one million registrations available for free to help livestock farmers address the problem. FSA therefore appeals to all parties to use this technology to actively address the risk, in the interests of biosecurity.”
More to read:
FMD: Advice from SA’s top beef farmer
