South African farmers fear devastation as foot-and-mouth takes hold

BBC

The peace of the lush, rural landscape in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province disguises the anxiety stalking the land.

This is the epicentre of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that has, in the past year, swept across eight of the country's nine provinces, devastating animal herds, with many cattle being killed to halt its spread.

Farmers are fearful that they could lose their livelihoods altogether as other countries take action and stop the import of South African animal products.

The highly contagious virus, transmitted through direct animal contact or through contaminated feed or water, causes painful blisters inside the mouth and under the hooves of animals such as goats, cows, and sheep, and can lead to lameness and problems feeding.

It lowers their yields and also sometimes kills young animals, but it is not harmful to humans.

The current situation in South Africa has now been declared a national disaster.

Despite being a relatively small part of the economy, agriculture is a key employer in rural areas and, in normal times, provides vital foreign exchange through meat and livestock exports.

KwaZulu-Natal is the heartland of the country's dairy industry.

Farms, with their cows grazing on the grass, dot the green hills lining the Mooi River.

Here, biosecurity measures such as disinfection points at farm entrances designed to prevent the spread of the virus, as well as roadblocks and restrictions on the movement of cattle, have not always worked.

Failing to stop the spread

The herd at the large commercial farm run by Carol Houston and her husband became infected last month.

"We received a call from our staff that 50 cows were showing signs of mastitis and were hobbling, struggling to walk. We did all we could to keep the disease out and spent roughly $380 (£280) per cow on treatment [including antibiotics]," Houston tells the BBC.

"My milking herd's normal output dropped from 14 000 litres of milk per day to 9 000 within days of the outbreak because infected cows eat less and struggled to produce milk."

Milk production remained at that level for about 2 weeks, until the infection was cleared from her herd of 2 200 cattle.

Now, as the cows line up to be milked, workers check each one for symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease.

With the afternoon sun beating down and the cows snorting and mooing, the workers inspect and clean the animals' teats, which are then attached to the milking equipment. The machines gently suck out the milk and transfer it to large containers.

Houston, who has 35 years of farming experience, blames the government for failing to stop the spread of the virus – an opinion shared by many farmers, such as Peter Griffin, whose farm is in the same area.

"The problem is it's a catastrophe that could've been avoided," says the dejected dairy farmer who has been in the business for 44 years. "We should never have got to this stage… the state has failed us."

In South Africa, foot-and-mouth is classified as a "controlled animal disease", meaning that the government is responsible for taking the lead on measures to deal with it.

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen has faced significant criticism over the outbreak, but last month he announced a long-term strategy to eliminate the disease within 10 years.

In the short term, this includes mass vaccination in the worst-affected areas before extending it to the majority of the national herd, estimated at around 14 million animals.

But dairy farmer Houston is sceptical about how quickly this could happen.

"We were told we would have the vaccine in January, we haven't got the vaccine. We were told we would have the vaccine in February, we don't have vaccine. So the ball gets pushed out, pushed out, pushed out. It's very frustrating," she says. Read more here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqvjwre8vqo