Director’s Cut: Dr Theo de Jager – How foot-and-mouth disease exposed South Africa’s broken state

In this Director’s Cut, Dr Theo de Jager, chair of the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI), tells Alec Hogg how the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has laid bare the collapse of South Africa’s agricultural command systems. Once tightly managed through roadblocks, military coordination, and traceability controls, the state has now “lost all command and control,” says de Jager. He explains how the disease spread from the Kruger Park to the Western Cape, devastating farmers, crippling exports, and driving up meat prices — all while the government imports outdated vaccines from Botswana and fails to produce its own. De Jager’s warning is blunt: “If the state doesn’t act, the disease will. And when that happens, it’s not just farmers who pay — it’s every South African at the supermarket till.”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.BizNews Reporter.For most South Africans, meat comes neatly wrapped from the supermarket fridge. But for those who produce it, the situation has become dire. Dr Theo de Jager, chairman of the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI), tells BizNews editor Alec Hogg that foot-and-mouth disease has spread beyond anything he has seen before. Once confined to the Kruger Park and the far north, the virus has crept into provinces like the Free State, Eastern Cape, and even the Western Cape — leaving farmers desperate and the government scrambling.“Foot-and-mouth is one of the most feared livestock diseases in the world,” de Jager explains. “It spreads like wildfire. Once an animal has it, it’s state-controlled. You can’t sell, move, or slaughter your cattle until the area is declared safe again.” In the past, South Africa contained outbreaks through strict zoning: red zones near the Kruger where the disease was endemic, buffer zones in between, and white zones that remained disease-free. Farmers, the army, and police manned roadblocks and stopped the movement of animals. That discipline is now gone.“We don’t have the capacity to cordon off areas anymore,” de Jager says. “There are no roadblocks, no coordination between departments, no command and control. So the disease just crawls across the country.” He describes how elephants break fences in the Kruger, buffalo follow through, and the infection passes to cattle. From there, it travels through the rural trade networks — small auctions, informal sales, and backyard slaughtering. “Once the movement starts, you can’t stop it,” he says.The human toll on farmers is immense. “You have farmers phoning to say, ‘I can’t sell my cattle, I can’t pay the bank, I can’t pay my children’s university fees.’ These are people who’ve done everything right, but they’re trapped. The banks don’t understand, the co-ops don’t understand. We’re dealing with an existential crisis for the farmers,” he says.De Jager explains that this outbreak is worse than any before because it’s hit the heartland of South African livestock production. “It’s now in the feedlots and the stud farms — places that drive our genetics industry. You can’t just replace that overnight. Farmers spend decades breeding perfect animals.” He says smallholder and communal farmers are also deeply affected because of weak traceability and poor fencing. “Animals move without markings or paperwork. No one knows who owns what. That’s how it spreads.”Vaccination, once a reliable defence, has become another scandal. “The vaccines are produced by the Agricultural Research Council in Pretoria, which used to be world-class,” de Jager says. “The state set aside half a billion rand to re-capacitate it years ago. To this day, we don’t know where that money went. Now we have to import vaccines from Botswana — an old formula from the 1970s.”He says South African farmers are paying double what their counterparts in Latin America pay for modern vaccines. “At one stage, the price per shot was R126. When we started asking questions, it dropped to R80. We know that in Brazil and Argentina, they pay around R42. So we’re asking, is there a middleman making money off this crisis?”Botswana and Namibia, de Jager notes, have strict animal control systems and export freely to the EU. “We can’t even control our borders with Zimbabwe and Mozambique. That’s why we’re in this mess. Those countries don’t have the same veterinary infrastructure. The disease walks across.”The economic consequences stretch far beyond the farms. “South Africa is a net importer of beef,” de Jager says. “So it’s not about exports — it’s about domestic food security. When you have fewer cattle, prices rise. It’s already happening. The Saturday braai is more expensive because there’s less meat on the shelves.”Even the abattoirs and feedlots, he says, are reeling. “The market is shrinking. Fewer animals can be sold or moved. Farmers have cash flow crises, and abattoirs can’t risk buying infected animals. So the whole chain suffers.”Asked whether infected meat is dangerous to humans, de Jager says no — but the logistics make it unworkable. “You can’t isolate and test every animal in a feedlot of 140,000 cattle. Once vaccinated, the animals can only go to abattoirs, and only after they’ve healed. That limits the market severely.”He insists that state control is the main problem. “This is a state-controlled disease, but the state isn’t in control,” he says. “Private vets, who know the farmers and districts, are ready to help, but they’re not allowed to intervene. The department refuses to involve them. It’s politics and bureaucracy standing in the way of common sense.”The solution, de Jager says, starts with three simple steps: “First, traceability — every animal must have an ID tag and a nose print, like a fingerprint. That stops theft and helps control disease. Second, isolation — no movement from infected districts. And third, cooperation — all stakeholders, public and private, must work together.”He adds that the lack of transparency from government has made farmers lose faith. “We reported outbreaks last year and were told, ‘Yes, we know about it, but we’re not declaring it yet.’ Six months later, they finally did. By then, it was too late. It had already spread. If they can’t summon the army or police to close the roads, who can?”For consumers, the warning is clear: this isn’t just a rural problem. “Foot-and-mouth means less meat and higher prices,” de Jager says. “It threatens jobs across the value chain — transporters, butchers, retailers. For every job on a farm, 17 others depend on it.”His message to government is simple but urgent. “We need to get back to basics. Identify every animal. Control the movement. Work together. If we don’t act fast, the disease will. And when that happens, every South African will pay — not just the farmers.”

Director’s Cut: Dr Theo de Jager – How foot-and-mouth disease exposed South Africa’s broken state

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