While Botswana’s beef value chain is under severe pressure due to ongoing outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), the South African government says it has received no official request for assistance. Meanwhile, an opposition political party has sharply criticised the Botswana government’s handling of the disease.
By Lloyd Phillips, senior journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
The recent unofficial but heartfelt plea by Botswana’s two largest private beef feedlots to South Africa for urgent help to accept and slaughter at least 6 600 cattle stranded by state FMD regulations appear not to have reached the Botswana government.
South Africa’s Department of Agriculture (DoA) told African Farming last week it has not been formally approached by the Botswana government regarding the thousands of cattle stranded in the two feedlots well beyond their intended slaughter dates in March and April.
“The DoA will respond to the business proposal upon receipt of an official letter addressed to the chief veterinarian, director-general or minister of South Africa,” said Moses Rannditsheni, director of media and external communication at the DoA.
The Botswana government has also not responded to African Farming’s two recent requests for clarity on the fate of the stranded cattle, the impact on the country’s beef value chain, or any efforts being made to find alternative export markets.
Also read: ‘South Africa, please help us!’ – Botswana feedlotters stranded with 6 600 cattle after FMD court loss
Feedlots still waiting
Jannie Strumpher Snr, who owns and operates J.S. Beef, one of the two feedlots still holding stranded cattle at enormous expense, says the Botswana government has not contacted him to discuss the situation.
The only official communication he has received was notification that J.S. Beef had been placed under precautionary quarantine following a new FMD outbreak just across the nearby South African border.
“We’ve been told that we can load the animals for slaughter after the 30-day quarantine period. We haven’t been told where they can be slaughtered, though,” he says.
African Farming recently reported that the state-owned Botswana Meat Commission, which has a monopoly on slaughtering and processing beef cattle, and is the only official channel beef export channel in the country, is reportedly not accepting animals because of FMD restrictions.
Opposition attacks government
Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang, a member of Botswana’s parliament and the Botswana Congress Party’s (BCP) shadow minister of lands and agriculture, has strongly criticised the government’s handling of the outbreak under President Duma Boko’s Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC).
“It is plainly clear that the UDC government has lost control of the FMD outbreak, and it has lost control through its own negligence,” Gobotswang said in a recent statement.
He warned the consequences extend far beyond affected farmers.
“When a farmer loses cattle, a family loses income. When markets close, transporters, abattoirs and feed suppliers lose business and work. When exports are banned, the whole country loses foreign exchange. The pain is felt in the kraal, in the village and in the national budget.”
Gobotswang added that the European Union, Botswana’s largest and most valuable beef export market, “has shut its doors”.
“Meanwhile farmers sit inside quarantine zones with unsellable cattle, no compensation and no straight answers.”
Also read: FMD in Botswana: ‘Shoot, burn and bury’ policy as outbreaks confirmed in 24 locations
Where’s the money?
The BCP is demanding that the national and district FMD Command Centres be abolished immediately, arguing that these “political structures” are “burning money we do not have”. The party says the funding should instead be redirected to disease surveillance, early detection, rapid response, biosecurity and the rehabilitation of disease-control fences.
It has also called on the government to present parliament with a full, itemised account of how the P97 million (about R117 million) allocated to FMD management has been spent.
“Batswana are entitled to know what their money bought because it plainly did not buy containment. Farmers are not the problem; they are the solution. Government must meaningfully engage farmers’ associations and unions at all levels. No farmer should carry the cost of a national failure on his own shoulders.”
Relief fund proposed
Gobotswang has proposed that the Botswana government:
- establish an FMD relief fund to compensate cattle owners whose animals died or were culled,
- provide income support for farmers in quarantine zones,
- extend relief to abattoirs, transporters and suppliers affected by movement controls, and
- help secure export markets willing to accept Botswana beef despite the country’s FMD outbreaks.
“The continued refusal to grant export permits punishes farmers twice: once for a disease they did not cause, and again for a bureaucracy they cannot influence.”
Also read:
Botswana investigates FMD extortion threats while SAT1 strain shows unprecedented international spread
Communal farmers have their say as FMD vaccination drive reaches SA-Botswana border
