FMD: Farmers can now vaccinate their own herds — Andrew Morphew unpacks what’s changed

For months, South African farmers argued they were being locked out of the fight against foot-and-mouth disease, forced to watch while red tape slowed vaccination to a crawl. This week, that changed. Free State Agriculture, SAAI and Sakeliga settled their court case with the state, opening a regulated private route for farmers to import and administer their own vaccine alongside government's programme. New Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp brokered the deal within days of taking office. Farmer and columnist Andrew Morphew argues it's not a legal win for one side, but the moment South Africa's farmers and state stopped fighting each other — and turned on the real enemy: FMD itself..By Andrew Morphew.The court case began with one question: why can farmers not vaccinate their own cattle? This week it was answered, not by a judgment but by agreement. And something larger changed with it. The state stopped treating farmers as a risk to be managed, and started treating them as part of the force needed to win.This began as a question, not a court case.Free State Agriculture, the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI) and Sakeliga went to court to ask one simple thing. Why can farmers not obtain lawful vaccine and vaccinate their own cattle? Francois Wilken, president of Free State Agriculture, put it in exactly those words.It was a question that should never have required months of litigation.Once South Africa chose vaccination as its route to controlling foot-and-mouth disease, speed and scale became unavoidable. The state can set the rules, approve the vaccines and oversee the programme. It cannot put every dose into every animal quickly enough on its own.Farmers were not asking to take control of the disease. They were asking to be let into the fight.This week, that happened.Regulation was never the argumentTheir case was never about whether foot-and-mouth vaccination should be regulated.It should be. The vaccine must be lawful. The cold chain must be protected. Every vaccination must be recorded. The state must know which animals were vaccinated, where, and with what.The dispute was narrower and more practical. It was about whether the state had to be the only route through which vaccine could be obtained and administered.On 25 May, the Pretoria High Court opened an interim route for owners and managers to procure and administer lawful vaccine under notification and reporting conditions. It also protected lawful commercial relationships between vaccine importers and their suppliers.But a court order could not rebuild the relationship between farmers and the state. Nor could it, on its own, build the supply system the country needs. That required the parties to sit down together.What changed this weekWillie Aucamp became Minister of Agriculture on 1 July. Days later, he brought the litigants and the department to the same table, to settle the case and to restore the relationship.The precise wording of the settlement will need to be read carefully when it is formally available. The direction is already clear.Authorised farmers and managers will be able to vaccinate their own animals. The settlement opens the way for lawful private import and distribution alongside existing state channels. The state will no longer position itself as the single channel through which all vaccine must pass. The government’s own programme continues, but private capacity can now work beside it.This is regulated private access, not a free-for-all. Every safeguard remains. What falls away is the bottleneck.In practical terms, this could open an additional private channel for Biogénesis Bagó vaccine, and allow Dunevax to supply the Dollvet vaccine directly to farmers through the approved framework.That is the practical breakthrough: parallel supply, a shorter route between the importer and the animal, and an acceptance of a reality the country could no longer ignore. South Africa cannot vaccinate at the speed and scale required while most of its capacity stands outside the system.The Minister said as much himself. “There is absolutely no way in which government on its own would have been able to solve the foot-and-mouth crisis.” Join forces with farmers, veterinarians, organised agriculture and private business, he said, and the fight becomes winnable.He was also honest about what comes next. An agreement, he said, even one printed in gold, is worth nothing if it is not implemented.That is the truest line spoken all week.Leadership changed the roomMuch of what was said after the settlement was not about the terms. It was about how they were reached.Dr Theo de Jager, board chair of SAAI, was emphatic. “In my lifetime in organised agriculture, I have not seen the kind of leadership that was displayed today.” He described a Minister who set the destination, established the principles, and kept the parties working towards a solution, one who wanted the state to enable the response rather than obstruct it.Dr Ivan Meyer, the Western Cape Minister of Agriculture, called it a moment of political maturity, and framed it around something larger. “One of the reasons I am here is that I believe in constitutionalism and the rule of law. What has happened here is that the rule of law and constitutionalism have come together.” A line the Minister had put to him carried the point in plainer terms. Farmers must not be in court. They must be on the farm.Piet le Roux of Sakeliga made a point that deserves to outlast this dispute. Litigation, he said, is a structured way for parties who hold genuinely different views, sometimes for good reasons, to resolve them, and it need not descend into personal animosity. The courts exist for exactly that. He was direct about the result. “The purpose of the legal proceedings was to enable farmers to vaccinate their cattle and obtain vaccines. That has been achieved by agreement between the parties.”The achievement here is not that one side won. It is that both can now stop fighting each other and turn to the common enemy.The Minister put it best. “We are in the same army, fighting the same enemy.” That enemy is foot-and-mouth, not each other.With access comes responsibilityFor months, farmers complained that they were being shut out of the response. The complaint was justified. The position has now changed, and with inclusion comes responsibility.The new route is not permission to vaccinate carelessly, or outside the system. It requires the responsible owner or manager to obtain authorisation, use lawfully supplied vaccine, notify the veterinary authority beforehand, preserve the cold chain, follow the manufacturer’s instructions, and report afterwards through the required system.De Jager put the discipline of it plainly to farmers. Apply for the vaccine and play by the rules. Notify five days before you vaccinate. Scan the QR code. Report within two weeks. “We now have a level playing field.”Compliance is not bureaucratic decoration. It protects traceability, vaccine integrity, and confidence in the entire private route. A failure to comply would not only put one farm at risk. It would undermine the case for farmer participation itself.Farmers asked to be trusted with this. We must now justify that trust.A milestone, not the finish lineThe settlement does not end the crisis.Vaccine still has to be imported, distributed and administered. The country still needs a coordinated strategy that produces population immunity, not simply accumulated doses.And the division of labour still holds. Approved private importers can supply vaccine, and private capacity can administer it. Only the state can establish the national surveillance framework, enforce common standards, and present the official evidence on which recognised disease status depends. Private capacity can execute. The sovereign functions remain sovereign..The quiet change that may win the war on FMD.This is a significant achievement for Free State Agriculture, SAAI and Sakeliga, who persisted with a question that always deserved a practical answer. It is an early achievement for Minister Aucamp, who treated settling the case not as a concession to agriculture, but as a step towards controlling the disease.This is not a moment for triumphalism. It is something better. It is a moment of common purpose.Farmers spent months asking to be let into the fight. They are now in it, standing alongside the state rather than against it.The energy that went into the disagreement can finally go where it always belonged, into beating the disease..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 every morning on weekdays. 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FMD: Farmers can now vaccinate their own herds — Andrew Morphew unpacks what’s changed

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