SA’s animal health makeover signals major policy shift

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JEREMY MAGGS: John Steenhuisen is trying to recast South Africa’s animal disease response, promising a smarter fight against bird flu by allowing regulated vaccination, as I understand it, instead of relying only on mass culling.

The agriculture minister says the new policy will protect poultry farmers, jobs and consumers from unnecessary losses and higher food prices.

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But it comes against a much bigger backdrop, I think. Farmers are already upset about the handling of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), vaccine shortages, and an unresolved R500 million Onderstepoort Project now reportedly before the SIU (Special investigating Unit).

So let me pull this together. Minister Steenhuisen, a very warm welcome to you. As I understand it, it took a formal objection from the poultry industry to force a policy shift on bird flu vaccination. Why was that the case?

JOHN STEENHUISEN: Well, because the previous director of animal health had registered objections to this particular approach, and our office required an objections process that we could then be able to adjudicate. We have done that now.

I agree completely with the industry on the way forward.

And, as we are setting out rebuilding our biosecurity infrastructure in South Africa, which has been set aside and left essentially by the wayside for the last 20 years, we are going to have to change the way we do things, just as we’ve completely changed the policy on how we deal with foot-and-mouth disease.

Listen/read: Private sector involvement critical to halt FMD spread, warn farmers

So too do we need to look at completely changing the policies around how we deal with animal – and plant – diseases going forward as we rebuild that biosecurity ecosystem in South Africa.

JEREMY MAGGS: So you’re effectively admitting, as far as bird flu is concerned, the old so-called stamping out model just failed farmers, and as a result pushed up food prices?

JOHN STEENHUISEN: Well, it had a number of effects. It caused a huge amount of uncertainty in the sector.

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When a new outbreak of bird flu or highly pathogenic avian influenza would arise, it would involve culling. In 2023, around R10.5 billion worth of culling had to take place – and obviously that has a huge impact on those farmers as well as the industry itself.

And then, of course, it causes obvious shocks in the supply chain and value chain, and that ultimately ends up costing more for consumers.

So we have to innovate around the way we handle animal and plant diseases. They’re not going away.

As we see the effects of climate change and the like taking place, there will be different strains and different challenges that face us. But I think if we’re able to build the ecosystem of biosecurity, it will be able to withstand any of those.

That means reviewing the policies.

For instance, with foot-and-mouth disease, the last 20 years we’ve spent the time chasing it around the country, drawing nice red lines on a map in Pretoria and hoping the disease stays in those areas. That wasn’t the reality.

And that’s why we’re sitting today with the problem that we have with foot-and-mouth disease. But a proactive vaccination strategy can ensure that we bring back certainty to the red meat sector.

We reopen the markets that have been closed for 20 to 30 years, and the same will be for our chickens.

JEREMY MAGGS: I want to come back to foot-and-mouth in just a moment, but as far as avian flu is concerned you reference shocks to the supply chain. All well and good. So who’s going to pay for the vaccines? Is it the state, the producers or ultimately consumers?

JOHN STEENHUISEN: No, it’ll be the producers [who] pay for them. But they’re not expensive. As they say, they would rather spend a little bit of money on vaccines than [incur] the huge amounts, the billions, that it’s going to cost for culling.

So it will just simply become a cost of production in the system. But I think the certainty it brings, and the ability of those producers to forecast better and not have the spectre of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) over their heads, will allow them to reduce overheads and some of the costs.

Listen/read: Will the current scourge of avian flu benefit our chicken producers?

I don’t see it affecting the price of chicken going forward. In fact, if anything, [with] that certainty and the ability to be able to produce at scale without worrying about this, I think we might even see some dropping in the prices.

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JEREMY MAGGS: Your big challenge, of course, is to make sure that smallholder farmers are not left behind while the large commercial producers move faster. How are you going to do that?

JOHN STEENHUISEN: It’s up to each particular individual [to decide] how they hope or plan to be able to prevent HPAI. There are some big organisations that won’t choose to vaccinate, who will continue to keep using the current quarantine and biosecurity protocols in place. It’s not a compulsory scheme, and people will have the choice.

But where you do have small-scale producers, they too will have the option about whether they want to vaccinate or whether they want to continue under the current system.

But by bringing certainty to the value chain and bringing certainty to production, it can only mean that those value chains will expand and grow, and with them will bring more small-scale producers into those value chains, which I think can only be a good thing.

JEREMY MAGGS: Can you guarantee, Minister, that this new bird flu policy is in fact going to protect export markets, or is there still a risk that vaccination could complicate trade access?

JOHN STEENHUISEN: Well, it depends. As we’ve seen with the vaccination of cattle, Argentina is a vaccinator. They have FMD free with vaccination, yet they have 94 markets available to them internationally. And it’ll be the same.

There may be some countries that will not want to accept vaccinated chickens, but I think that being able to provide them with the certainty that chickens coming from South Africa with the export will not be carrying HPAI.

I think will also bring a greater trust and confidence in products coming out of South Africa.

JEREMY MAGGS: On foot-and-mouth disease, you’ve said the vaccination drive is unprecedented; but Minister, if it’s so large, there are still farmers who say the response is still fragmented and too slow.

JOHN STEENHUISEN: Well, you’re always going to get people who are unhappy in any response that government’s rolling out.

The reality is that we’ve led the largest vaccine acquisition in the animal health sector. We’ve led the largest liberalisation of vaccine procurement through still relying on a single vaccine provider.

We’ve now opened up the market to anybody who can produce vaccines to be able to apply to match them in South Africa and use them.

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And we’ve unleashed the largest public-private partnership in the vaccination campaign where, just this week, I’ve given 1.5 million vaccines to the feedlot sector, over half a million vaccines to the Red Meat Producers’ Organisation, another R300 000 on top of the almost a R1 million to the Milk Producers’ Organisation who are assisting us with rolling these vaccines out around the country.

Of course, no response of this scale could be undertaken by government alone.

[It requires] private-sector participation to help us reach our target of vaccinating 80% of the national cattle population by December, which will get the current outbreak under control and ensure this is the last major foot-and-mouth disease outbreak South Africa ever sees.

JEREMY MAGGS: Just finally, the reported R500 million Onderstepoort project has been well documented, Minister. As I understand it, it’s now with the SIU.

Very quickly, what went wrong and when is the public going to know who is who is accountable here?

JOHN STEENHUISEN: Well, obviously – again, I’ve noticed there’s a certain lobby group that’s trying to say this happened on my watch. It didn’t. This dates back to the early 2020s.

But there was half a billion rand that was set aside for the development of a facility at Onderstepoort. That facility wasn’t built, and part of the work of the investigation is to get to the bottom of who was accountable and who was responsible for that.

Read: South African farming: new policy offers promise [Jan 2022]

And that is why one of the first things I did when I got into office was to meet with the SIU, to have a look at what they had done to date and what had been reported, what had not been reported.

But obviously this is a very long and convoluted process. The money wasn’t [sent] through National Treasury, it was [allocated] by parliament, which was itself quite unusual.

And I’m quite determined to get to the bottom of it and to hold those accountable responsible for their actions.

JEREMY MAGGS: John Steenhuisen is the Minister of Agriculture. Thank you very much.

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