On day 44 of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in their Holstein dairy herd, the people of C. Nel Farming are feeling helpless, drained, discouraged and emotionally exhausted.
By Carien Kruger
African Farming spoke to three members of the family operation C. Nel Farming on their farm near Randfontein, Gauteng, where foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) broke out in December. They are devastated.
Brother and sister Corné Nel and Ismari Roestoff manage the family business, and Jaco Riekert, Ismari’s son-in-law, is the dairy manager.
Their cows began showing signs of FMD on 12 December. Corné says it is difficult to put the emotions they are experiencing into words. On 11 December, they were still milking 1 192 cows, but FMD drastically changed that situation. By 29 January, they had lost 292 cows and 54 calves.
What Do You Do With 300 Carcasses?
“What do you do with nearly 300 carcasses?” he asks. “At one stage I felt like dumping carcasses in Randfontein just to make people realise what was happening.”
They wanted to have the cows slaughtered, but could not find space at any abattoirs certified to slaughter animals infected with FMD. “Nobody could help us, and the cows just kept losing condition.”
Also read: FMD | SA’s Ayrshire dairy farmers’ desperate fight to save their herds
The Cost of Losing Production
Jaco says their milk production stood at 40 831 litres per day on 11 December. Fifteen days later, it had dropped to 14 732 litres per day. By 29 January, it stood at 9 800 litres per day.
“The loss of cash flow is like a salaried person suddenly receiving only a third of their salary,” Corné says. “But we are responsible for many people who work for us.”
The family is fully invested in the farming business.
“What is happening now has put us in a very bad position,” Corné says. “Our farm – and I believe many other farms in South Africa – is built on innovation and finding solutions.
“In my 30 years as a farmer, I have never been in a situation where we could not make a plan. When droughts, market prices or political decisions created problems, we analysed the situation, brainstormed and found solutions.
“A large part of those plans involved becoming more productive so that we could maintain profit margins even when prices were low. With FMD, your hands are cut off. There is no vaccine available. For some political reason, you cannot protect yourself.
“Your cows are the machines that generate your cash flow, and now you are losing them. In December, we lost all our calves because of FMD. We do have replacement heifers, but your income is now lower because the part of the farm that does not contribute to cash flow becomes proportionally bigger.
“If we do not have a second outbreak, it will take us at least four years to rebuild our herd numbers – unless we buy in animals, but there will be no calves or heifers available to buy.
“We know of dairies where the daily milk volumes dropped by half after experiencing a second outbreak.”
No Notice, No Vaccine
Corné says that about four weeks before the outbreak on their farm, there was an FMD case in communal cattle about 7km away.
“The state veterinarian reportedly went there and vaccinated and branded the cattle, but nobody in the surrounding area was informed. The cattle continued grazing everywhere, as usual.
“Whether there was vaccine available at that time to vaccinate our herd preventatively, I don’t know. But if we had been informed, it would have given us four weeks to protect our herd.”
When FMD broke out on their farm, a Gauteng state veterinarian said there was no vaccine available in the province. “Our own veterinarians also tried to source vaccine.”
A few weeks later, vaccination would no longer help. “It will not change our situation. Vaccinations have to be done preventatively.”
Also read: FMD | ‘Worst challenge since rinderpest’ requires cooperation
Emotional Toll
Corné, Ismari and Jaco all say their emotions were in turmoil during the first few weeks after the outbreak.
“We raised all these animals ourselves,” Ismari says. “Now you have to decide whether a cow will survive or not. You are the one who has to pull the trigger or cut the cow’s throat.”
Infected cows stop eating because of painful sores in their mouths. They also develop painful hooves and struggle to walk. “Before the outbreak, our average dry matter intake per cow per day was 23kg. That dropped to 12kg per cow per day.”
Ismari says calves die before reaching 30 days of age. “One moment you are with a calf and there is nothing wrong. The next moment, the calf is dead. In December alone, we lost 32 of our suckling calves. Fortunately, we did not have many calves at that time. In other months, we have between 100 and 150 calves.”
Farmers Feel Let Down
“We feel that the minister [John Steenhuisen, minister of agriculture] and the government have let us down, and that what happened to us was not due to our own actions,” Corné says.
“We cannot depend on the state to protect us. The state has proven that it does not have the capacity. This needs to be privatised.”
Support From the Private Sector
Corné praises Standard Bank and the farm’s input suppliers and milk buyers. “Everyone is standing by us. There is not a single company that has turned its back on us. We will rise from this situation, and we will be stronger.”
“We have no choice,” Ismari adds.
WATCH | Neo Brian Rasehlo talks to us about FMD (Setswana and English)
