The strong and rapid start to vaccinating as many of KwaZulu-Natal’s commercial dairy farms as possible against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has reportedly ground to a halt. No further doses of vaccine beyond the 250 000 that the Milk Producers’ Organisation in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN MPO) was initially allocated are currently forthcoming.
By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
Sandra Berning, chairperson of the KZN MPO, says a further approximately 100 000 cattle on the province’s dairy farms, mainly in the central and northern regions, must still be administered their first dose of vaccine.
The KZN MPO and its private vaccination teams reportedly administered the 250 000 doses on dairy farms, including to beef cattle belonging to these farms’ workers, within four days. Most of these farms were in this province’s southern and central regions.
Dale Hutton is the KwaZulu-Natal Toyota SA/Kwanalu Young Farmer of the Year for 2025 and a dairy farmer in the Creighton district of southern KwaZulu-Natal.
After a long and nail-biting wait, his cattle finally received their first dose each of FMD vaccine recently. However, the relief from this is being undermined by the fact that a neighbour’s dairy cattle are currently infected with FMD.
“Vaccine for my cattle only became available three days after my neighbour notified me that his cattle were showing symptoms. Thankfully, my cattle are not showing any symptoms right now, but I’ve literally been praying hard all the time for the vaccinations to give enough protection. Every day that goes by without symptoms is a gift.”
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Questions about Vaccine Allocation
Hutton says he and other dairy farmers are struggling to understand the logic that animal health authorities of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (KZN DARD) are using in their allocations of FMD vaccines in the province.
John Steenhuisen, the Minister of Agriculture, previously stated that dairy cattle would be prioritised for FMD vaccination because they typically experience far more severe symptoms of infection with this virus than beef cattle.
Shaun van Huyssteen is the chairperson of the Underberg Farmers Association, also in southern KZN. His dairy farm in the Bushman’s Nek area is currently severely infected with FMD.
“My cows in milk and my steam-up cows were vaccinated two days before they began showing symptoms of infection. There wasn’t enough vaccine allocated for the rest of the cows on the farm to also be vaccinated. It’s been three weeks of ongoing infection on my farm and I’ve lost about two-thirds of my income.”
Van Huyssteen says there are about seven dairy farms currently infected with FMD in the Underberg district. The KZN DARD reportedly allocated sufficient doses to vaccinate all dairy cattle only on farms intended to act as a buffer along the Kilmun boundary of this district. Cattle on the district’s remaining dairy farms would not be vaccinated for now.
“We local farmers and private vets instead took the decision to share the doses across all our district’s dairy farms. How was I expected to tell some fellow dairy farmers that none of their animals were going to be vaccinated while all the dairy cattle on farms in other parts of our district were going to be vaccinated?
“There weren’t enough doses for all the dairy cattle across our entire district, so we only vaccinated all the cows in milk and the steam-up cows, which both generate immediate income, to at least try to keep the farms operating. We’ve all had to sacrifice the heifers and calves until more doses eventually arrive.”
There are reportedly also dairy farms in the Underberg district that could not be vaccinated because they had active FMD infections at the time. Though their infections eventually resolved, there were, and still are, no doses to vaccinate them now.
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Vaccinated Cattle ‘Sick as Hell’
In the meantime, Van Huyssteen and other dairy farmers in his district are questioning the efficacy of the FMD vaccines that have been administered so far to their cows in milk and their steam-up cows.
“Every one of my vaccinated cows is as sick as hell. It’s happening with vaccinated dairy cattle on other farms too. Their mouths and tongues are painful, so they don’t want to eat. Their hooves are painful, so they struggle to walk. The painful mastitis in their udders and teats can persist for weeks, so they don’t want to be handled. I’m going to start having to cull some of my cows.
“We dairy farmers have heifers and cows in calf right now. The infected animals are losing body condition because they can’t eat properly. We don’t know how this might affect calving percentages in the short term. We don’t know how long-term fertility might be impacted. Calves and unvaccinated heifers are dying. A neighbouring farm lost about 60 calves in three weeks.”
Van Huyssteen says in his 30 years of farming he has never seen “anything as destructive as this”. He and other FMD-affected dairy farmers feel helpless because no amount of effort and treatments to try to control infections seem to work.
Dairy farmers and their employees are suffering an immense psychological toll. The Underberg Farmers Association has consequently facilitated experts to provide counselling.
“We’re all very traumatised by this. I don’t think there are many people who are going to get into dairy in a hurry in the future. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” says Van Huyssteen.
On 17 March, African Farming submitted questions to the KZN DARD seeking clarity on the thinking that this department followed with its own allocations of the 560 000 doses of FMD vaccine that the national Department of Agriculture allocated to KwaZulu-Natal, and that arrived in the province on 11 March. At the time of writing, and despite African Farming’s reminders, the KZN DARD had not provided its responses.
Also read:
FMD | Feedlots still waiting for vaccines
FMD awareness | How foot-and-mouth disease spreads
FMD awareness | What consumers and farmers need to know about meat safety
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