Dairy and other livestock farmers, especially those in KwaZulu-Natal, must stay on high alert to proactively prevent foot-and-mouth disease from reaching their farms. However, this constant vigilance can become draining and burdensome.
By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
Even KwaZulu-Natal’s top young farmer of 2025 must keep reminding himself never to let down his guard against the risk of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) potentially reaching his 2 000 dairy cattle. Dale Hutton says this is currently number one on the list of things that keep him awake at night.
Hutton’s farm in KwaZulu-Natal’s Creighton district is approximately 150km as the crow flies from the nearest border of the province’s foot-and-mouth disease management area (DMA) of an estimated four million hectares, which lies mostly in the east of the province. This offers him little comfort, though, because this disease has already escaped the DMA numerous times since 2021.
“It’s a hot topic in our local farming community and in our study group. Everyone gets on high alert, but then something else pops up – like hail or the milk price or input costs – that takes your attention off foot-and-mouth. But then you hear of a farm somewhere getting a new case and then you suddenly panic and freak out and stress even more. This is how it kind of goes.”
He says groups such as farmers’ associations and private consultancies send out regular updates on what is happening with FMD and with advice on minimising the threat. This includes implementing, maintaining and even improving biosecurity measures.
Also read: KZN dairy crisis: FMD could trigger national milk shortage, experts warn
State Must Also Think Short-term
“Biosecurity is immensely important but the flip side of that is biosecurity fatigue. You can’t help but get tired of having to check on things like making sure that all vehicles and staff are properly disinfected multiple times a day, on top of all the other operational demands. What’s even more frustrating is hearing that even with top biosecurity measures, other farming operations have still become infected with foot-and-mouth.”
Nevertheless, Hutton continues with his biosecurity protocols. These include not allowing any vehicles, including feed delivery and milk collection trucks, onto his farm unless they were first thoroughly disinfected, and walking cull cattle off the farm before they can be loaded onto a buyer’s vehicle.
He also spreads lime on his farm’s main roads. Lime’s high alkalinity kills any foot-and-mouth virus that may be on vehicles’ tyres and on the bottoms of people’s shoes.
“The sentiment in our area is that we need to proactively vaccinate against foot-and-mouth and we need to do it now. But Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen is not doing enough to get it to us. His long-term plans are great, but he’s not making a short-term plan even though foot-and-mouth could arrive here at any time.
“If foot-and-mouth gets within 100km of us here, then we’ll start [implementing] all sorts of proactive immune-boosting protocols. And, we’ll really start squealing about getting the vaccine. It’s a consensus among dairy farmers that the production and distribution of vaccine should be privatised, and that vaccinating against foot-and-mouth should become part of our regular vaccination programme.”
Also read: Foot-and-mouth disease and desperate farmers: Vaccination holds the key
