South Africa’s Foot-and-Mouth Emergency Tests the Future of Farming

South Africa’s livestock industry entered 2026 under intense pressure as foot-and-mouth disease spread across much of the country. What might first appear to be a veterinary issue has become a wider epizootic (diere-epidemie) with consequences for farming families, rural employment, food production, and international trade. The disease has affected cattle, sheep, goats, and other cloven-hoofed animals, bringing anxiety to areas where farming is not simply a business but the foundation of local communities. In KwaZulu-Natal, one of the worst affected provinces, green pastures and productive dairy farms have become places of constant monitoring, disinfection, and uncertainty. For many producers, the question is no longer whether the outbreak will affect their operations, but how much damage they can absorb before their businesses become impossible to sustain.

Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious viral illness that spreads rapidly between susceptible animals. It can move through direct contact, contaminated feed, water, equipment, clothing, vehicles, and even airborne particles in certain conditions. Its transmission (oordrag) is especially difficult to control in a country with large commercial farms, small-scale livestock keepers, transport networks, auctions, feedlots, and cross-border animal movement. Infected animals may develop fever, painful sores in the mouth, blisters around the hooves, lameness, and difficulty eating or drinking. Although the disease is not considered a major public health threat to humans, its effect on animal welfare and farm productivity can be severe.

The economic consequences of foot-and-mouth disease are often more damaging than the disease’s mortality rate alone would suggest. Adult animals frequently survive, but they may lose weight, produce less milk, struggle to walk, or take months to regain normal condition. Young animals can be more vulnerable, particularly when infected mothers cannot provide adequate milk. The need for biosecurity (bioveiligheid) becomes urgent because a single infected animal, vehicle, worker, or contaminated item can bring the virus into a previously healthy herd. Farmers therefore have to establish disinfection points, restrict visitors, track animal movements, isolate new arrivals, and inspect livestock constantly for early symptoms. These controls are expensive and labour-intensive, especially for farms already facing high feed, fuel, veterinary, and transport costs.

KwaZulu-Natal has been at the centre of the crisis because of its important dairy and cattle industries. The province’s farms support large numbers of workers and provide milk and meat to markets far beyond the region. Here, the fragility (broosheid) of the agricultural system has become clear as one outbreak can disrupt an entire local economy. Farmers may be unable to move animals to markets, purchase replacement stock, send cattle to feedlots, or complete planned sales. Movement controls can be necessary to slow the virus, but they also leave farmers carrying the cost of animals that must remain on their properties longer than expected. When cash flow depends on regular livestock sales or daily milk production, even a short interruption can create long-term financial problems.

For dairy farmers, the disease can cause an immediate fall in output. Cows in pain eat less, drink less, walk less easily, and may become vulnerable to secondary infections such as mastitis. The result can be a sharp attrition (uitputting) of milk production at exactly the moment when farmers are spending more money on treatment, cleaning, staff time, and protective measures. A farm that normally supplies large quantities of milk every day may suddenly produce thousands of litres less, reducing income while fixed costs remain unchanged. Workers must still be paid, animals must still be fed, machinery must still be maintained, and debts must still be serviced. This explains why farmers often describe the disease as an economic emergency rather than only an animal-health problem.

The damage does not stop at the farm gate. South Africa’s beef and livestock exports have suffered as trading partners respond to the outbreak with restrictions or bans on animal products. Beef exports fell in 2025, while shipments to China declined sharply after that market imposed restrictions on South African red meat. The resulting dislocation (ontwrigting) affects farmers, abattoirs, feed suppliers, transport companies, exporters, veterinarians, and workers throughout the supply chain. Export markets are particularly valuable because they bring foreign currency into the country and support a wider agricultural economy. When access to those markets is disrupted, the effects can spread to domestic prices, investment decisions, and the willingness of farmers to expand or restock their herds.

The government responded by classifying the outbreak as a national disaster in February 2026. That decision gave authorities access to additional resources and created a stronger legal basis for a national response. The declaration enabled the procurement (verkryging) of vaccines and other emergency measures to be accelerated, although farmers remained concerned about the speed at which support could reach the areas most at risk. Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen announced a long-term strategy that aims to stabilise the crisis, improve disease control, rebuild domestic vaccine production, and eventually restore South Africa’s international standing in livestock trade. The plan recognises that foot-and-mouth disease cannot be solved through one emergency intervention alone and that rebuilding confidence will take years.

Vaccines are central to the response, but obtaining enough doses has been a major challenge. South Africa lost much of its ability to produce agricultural vaccines at scale after years of underinvestment, leaving the country dependent on imported supplies from countries including Argentina, Botswana, Turkey, and elsewhere. This dependence created a strategic bottleneck (bottelnek) because vaccine availability depends on global production capacity, import approvals, transport arrangements, and competition from other countries facing outbreaks. The government has also moved to restart domestic production through the Agricultural Research Council and Onderstepoort Biological Products, but local manufacturing will require time before it can meet national demand. By the end of May 2026, the government said that it had procured 13.5 million vaccine doses and vaccinated just under 4.4 million animals across the country.

The scale of the vaccination programme is unprecedented for South Africa’s livestock sector. Government plans have focused on reaching at least 80% of the national cattle herd, beginning with the most severely affected and highest-risk areas. Yet vaccination alone cannot eliminate the virus immediately because infected animals, movement patterns, contaminated environments, and wildlife interactions can all complicate control efforts. It must be paired with surveillance (monitering) that identifies outbreaks early, confirms the virus strain, maps areas of risk, and ensures that restrictions are applied where they are most needed. Accurate reporting from farmers is therefore essential, even when producers fear the financial consequences of being placed under movement controls. A successful programme depends on transparency, rapid testing, trusted veterinary services, and cooperation between government and industry.

The longer-term strategy also depends on how South Africa works with neighbouring countries. Animal diseases do not respect national borders, particularly in a region where livestock, wildlife, people, and trade routes are closely connected. At the centre of the plan lies regionalisation (streeksvorming), an approach that seeks to manage disease risks through coordinated zones, shared surveillance, vaccine cooperation, and practical trade arrangements. South Africa has called for stronger regional coordination through the Southern African Development Community, including discussion of a regional vaccine bank and improved cooperation on animal-health systems. This matters because an outbreak in one country can quickly affect trade confidence across the region. A more coordinated approach could help reduce future disruptions while allowing safer trade to continue in areas where disease controls are working effectively.

Many farmers believe that the crisis could have been reduced through earlier investment in veterinary services, laboratory capacity, border controls, vaccines, and communication systems. Some argue that the response was too slow and too fragmented during the early stages of the outbreak. This criticism reflects a wider mistrust (wantroue) between producers and the state, particularly among farmers who feel they have been left to carry the cost of disease control on their own. Government officials acknowledge the hardship but say that the country is shifting from a reactive approach to a more preventative and risk-based system. Whether farmers accept that explanation will depend on results, including reliable vaccine delivery, clear movement rules, rapid compensation where appropriate, and stronger support for both commercial and small-scale livestock keepers.

For small farmers, the stakes are especially high. A producer with a few cattle may have little financial protection if animals become infected, cannot be sold, or lose value. Livestock often represents savings, income, food security, and the ability to pay school fees or meet household expenses. The outbreak has exposed the unequal vulnerability (kwesbaarheid) of rural producers, because large farms may have more staff, facilities, and financial reserves to manage a long crisis. Small-scale farmers can be just as important to local food systems, but they may find it harder to access veterinary advice, secure feed, build disinfection facilities, or survive a prolonged ban on animal movement. Effective control measures must therefore include practical support that reaches every level of the farming sector.

South Africa’s foot-and-mouth emergency will not be resolved simply when infection numbers begin to decline. It will require better coordination between provinces, more reliable access to vaccines, stronger laboratories, faster reporting, and lasting cooperation with farmers. The national response has produced important progress, particularly through the large vaccination campaign and renewed attention to domestic vaccine capacity. Whether that progress becomes permanent will depend on resilience (veerkragtigheid) in institutions as well as on farms, because the country must be able to respond before the next outbreak becomes a national disaster. For now, farmers remain on the front line, balancing the daily work of feeding and caring for animals with the constant fear that one new infection could undo years of effort. Their experience shows that protecting livestock is also about protecting livelihoods, rural communities, and the long-term security of South Africa’s food system.

Key Afrikaans Vocabulary

diere-epidemie epizootic
oordrag transmission
bioveiligheid biosecurity
broosheid fragility
uitputting attrition
ontwrigting dislocation
verkryging procurement
bottelnek bottleneck
monitering surveillance
streeksvorming regionalisation
wantroue mistrust
kwesbaarheid vulnerability
veerkragtigheid resilience

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