JOHANNESBURG - Foot and Mouth Disease is extremely contagious and animals are susceptible to infection immediately after contact.
The fight against the disease is proving to be even more daunting in the Eastern Cape because many emerging farmers lack access to land.
Without being able to quarantine animals, the virus tends to spread rapidly.
Anazo Mtalana-Njili of the Komga Emerging Farmers said owning livestock in the rural areas of South Africa is like having a long-term investment.
But any threat to a good investment leads to financial losses.
Mtalana-Njili said some emerging farmers in the Eastern Cape don’t have access to land, which makes their animals much more vulnerable to Foot and Mouth Disease.
“We don’t have a place to put our cattle, and we don’t even have boundaries. We are left out, and we have been engaging with the municipality, with no help.”
Animals are left to graze near roads or within residential areas and it's not possible to keep livestock from different owners apart.
Nolan Weyer, a retired veterinarian believes the agricultural sector must develop a solution to help with the quarantine of stray livestock.
“In my younger days, they had an effective method of picking up animals on the side of the road. They would deploy equipment, a race-holding pin, by loading these animals. They would then take them through to the pounds, but we just don’t see that today.”
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said his department is accelerating its vaccination drive and that he is optimistic that FMD will be eradicated by this.
“For the first time, we are importing vaccines on a large scale and in a fortnight, we will await the five million from BioGenesis.
So, we now have the vaccines too, and we are determined to vaccinate the entire national herd by 80% in December and reduce incidents of foot-and-mouth by 80%.”
Foot and Mouth Disease not only places South Africa’s food security at risk, but it also jeopardises jobs and commercial farming.
However, those farming on a much smaller scale are much more vulnerable to the spread of the virus.