There are livestock farmers who are baulking at the national Department of Agriculture’s requirements to be indemnified against any potential negative consequences of vaccinating South Africa’s cattle and other species against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). John Steenhuisen, the Minister of Agriculture, says this indemnification is not driven by ulterior motives.
By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
The national Department of Agriculture recently distributed an application for foot and mouth disease vaccination to all of South Africa’s livestock owners as part of the nationwide emergency vaccination campaign to bring the country’s FMD epidemic under control.
According to reports received by African Farming, there are livestock owners who are wary of, or outright opposed to, the application’s clause that states: “By signing the request for FMD vaccination, I the undersigned hereby indemnify and hold harmless the state entity (including but not limited to the Department of Agriculture) supplying and administering the vaccine from any and all claims, damages or legal actions by myself or any third party that may arise as a result of the vaccination.”
On Friday, 27 March, Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen visited Colbourne Dairy Farm in KwaZulu-Natal’s Karkloof district to launch and witness the first official vaccinations against FMD of a herd of dairy cattle in this province. Dairy cattle are, in general, far worse affected by the FMD virus than beef cattle. The province has approximately 182 milk producers who have an estimated 300 000 cattle, and those whose cattle have, to date, miraculously been able to avoid contracting FMD have been living in a state of extreme anxiety for months in anticipation of this devastating virus’s eventual arrival in their herds.
At the vaccination event at Colbourne Dairy Farm, which belongs to Andrew Morphew, African Farming asked Steenhuisen why the application for vaccination contains indemnity clauses.
Steenhuisen replied: “The efforts to get vaccines in has been an emergency process. If we had followed the full requirements of the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Seeds and Remedies Act (Act 36 of 1947) to get FMD vaccines into South Africa, it would have taken upwards of six months to a year to get the vaccines approved.
“Our farmers couldn’t wait that long, so we used the Section 21 process that, in an emergency like we are in, bypasses the full regulatory requirements and processes first required by Act 36. So, the state has to protect itself in a situation where people have wanted the vaccines on an emergency basis. That is what the indemnity is about. It is the same indemnity that would have been used [for the emergency vaccines] during the Covid-19 [pandemic].”
<video caption> On Friday, Nkululeko Xhashimba, an animal health technician with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, officially administered foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines to the more than 800 dairy cows belong to Andrew Morphew, a milk producer in the province’s Karkloof district. Photo: Lloyd Phillips
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Regarding calls for the state to financially compensate livestock owners who have been impacted by FMD, Steenhuisen said that “it is not a cut-and-dried matter”.
He explained that his department is in the process of obtaining detailed legal advice on the subject. However, from what Steenhuisen already understands, livestock owners intending to lodge claims for compensation would need to be able to prove beyond doubt that FMD entered their herds through no fault of their own. For example, the farm’s biosecurity measures would need to have been fully and consistently appropriate and functional, and the livestock owner would have had to fully and consistently followed all legal requirements for moving livestock.
Steenhuisen dispelled rumours that the Botswana Vaccine Institute had more doses of its vaccine ready and waiting late last year for dispatch to South Africa, but that these had eventually been shipped to Zimbabwe for its own outbreak of FMD because the South African authorities had not processed the required paperwork in time.
“That’s simply not true. We already had an order in for more vaccine from Botswana. They came back to us and said they cannot fulfil our order because they have a mandatory factory shutdown. We still have those vaccines on back order from Botswana.”
Steenhuisen said the approximately R400 million that his department did not spend in the 2025-’26 financial year and that the National Treasury has redirected to the department’s emergency national FMD vaccination campaign for 2026-’27 will be used towards paying for vaccines for livestock owners during the current emergency vaccination phase. Thereafter, the state will pay for vaccines for livestock owners who are in a 10km radius of any new confirmed outbreaks of this disease.
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“[In the long term] we’re busy developing a Section 10 scheme that will lead to voluntary vaccination and you can do that with your private veterinarian. Obviously, you [as the livestock owner] will then have to pick up the cost of that.
“Contrary to the fake news doing the rounds that says the vaccine is R300 a dose, the Biogénesis Bagó [vaccine from Argentina] is less than R80 a dose and the Dollvet [vaccine from Turkey] is less than R60 a dose. So, these are not huge amounts that we’re talking about here and, of course, you only need one to two doses per annum,” said Steenhuisen.
Also read:
FMD awareness | How foot-and-mouth disease spreads
WATCH | Dr Aamira Vally of the ARC gives tips on biosecurity
FMD | New research could reduce losses for cattle farmers
Have your say | Eradication of FMD and the significance of ubuntu
