As foot-and-mouth disease spreads, so does the confusion

When a disease spreads as fast as foot-and-mouth, clear and consistent communication is not a luxury; it is a containment tool. South Africa’s foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak, now a national disaster spanning all nine provinces, has left a chorus of voices across the agricultural sector raising the same concern – that information has not kept pace with the disease. What has followed is uncertainty, frustration and room for opportunists.

The outbreak is entering what authorities are calling its most decisive phase, with vaccine rollout starting across the country. At an FMD media briefing on 26 February 2026, Gauteng MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development, Vuyiswa Ramokgopa, said Gauteng alone had recorded 228 confirmed cases, with 297,413 animals affected across communal, dairy and commercial operations since the outbreak began.

The province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has administered 268,315 vaccine doses, while almost half of that number of animals have undergone controlled slaughter as part of the containment strategy.

The economic stakes are considerable. Beef contributes approximately R46-billion to South Africa’s farm economy, and dairy around R22-billion. Agricultural economist and presidential envoy on agriculture, Wandile Sihlobo, noted that livestock and poultry together accounted for roughly half of SA’s total agricultural output. He was cautiously optimistic that meat prices may not surge as sharply as some feared, pointing to reasonably robust slaughter rates, but was clear about what the current moment hinged on.

“What remains critical is the success of the vaccination efforts that are under way,” he said.

Strength of the four-pillar response

At the media briefing on 26 February, Ramokgopa outlined the province’s four-pillar response – contain, enforce, vaccinate, communicate – and announced that a full provincial vaccination rollout was commencing that day, with Gauteng receiving 70,000 doses from the national procurement of one million on 21 February.

In terms of the fourth pillar of response, Ramokgopa confirmed that a live geomap platform was being developed to give farmers and the public real-time data on the outbreak and vaccination rollout.

When Daily Maverick asked when this communication tool would go live, she said: “I’d be reluctant to give you a date, but suffice to say it is also very urgent.” A WhatsApp channel for verified updates on FMD in Gauteng had been created in the interim.

For Francois Rossouw, the CEO of the Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai), the communication challenge ran deeper than any single platform.

“From the beginning, that has been the problem,” he said. “There is a massive communication gap. Farmers are left in the dark – they often don’t know what is going on.”

Rossouw's request is direct: “Communicate with us.”

AfriForum’s manager of environmental affairs, Lambert de Klerk, said communication throughout the crisis could have been “more consistent, more timely and more transparent”, with trust in a crisis depending on clear answers about what vaccines were available, which areas were prioritised and who carried accountability at each stage.

Dewald Olivier, CEO of Red Meat Industry Services, described what that gap looked like on the ground. Farmers want “a simple, verified pathway” but were instead encountering “confusion created by misinformation” on top of the expected pressures.

Sihlobo said: “The government will have to step up its communication, as the minister [of agriculture] is doing, and ensure that farmers are aware of all processes. This will help in minimising the information void and close room for misinformation.”

Confusion seized by opportunists

From that void came exploitation. The FMD Industry Coordination Council in a 13 February 2026 progress report flagged that certain individuals and companies were exploiting producers’ desperate situation by requesting pre-payment to secure vaccine access, noting that legal importers did not currently have the right to privately market or sell vaccines.

Olivier, who is a member of the council, confirmed reports of social media posts asking for deposits to “reserve” doses, and of individuals in KwaZulu-Natal approaching farmers directly, asking around R700 for access. The matter had been escalated to the Department of Agriculture and raised within the ministerial task team, said Olivier.

Daily Maverick has been made aware of one such case, but many stakeholders, such as Rossouw, have said that they were not aware of situations where farmers were exploited so deliberately.

In a briefing at the ministerial outreach programme for FMD mass vaccination held in KwaZulu-Natal on 27 February 2026, Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen addressed why vaccines could not simply be made freely available, even amid desperate demand.

“You can’t just have a vaccine free-for-all. It’s not like buying Panado,” said Steenhuisen. He explained that data collection and surveillance were as critical as vaccination, and that vaccinating without that data trail could leave the country spending billions of rand with no improvement in its international FMD status.

“The vaccination is just one tool,” he said. The other tools would be surveillance, monitoring, registration and movement controls. “A lot of people are under the impression that a vaccine is just a silver bullet in this thing. It’s not.”

Steenhuisen confirmed the arrival of 1.5-million doses of the Dollvet vaccine from Turkey on 1 March, with a further five million multivalent doses from Biogénesis Bagó due on 15 March. The goal, he said, was to vaccinate 80% of the national herd by December 2026, requiring 28 million doses over 12 months.

With such a large quantity needed, Steenhuisen confirmed that illegal vaccines were also popping up. An illegal consignment of Kenyan FMD vaccine had been intercepted entering KwaZulu-Natal in December 2025. The Kenyan vaccine contains a strain not present in SA, meaning widespread illegal use could undermine the approved vaccination strategy entirely.

Dairy ‘the hardest hit’

Rossouw described the sector carrying the heaviest burden, saying: “When you look at what industries have been hit hardest by the outbreak, dairy cattle are first, second, third, fourth and fifth on that list.”

KwaZulu-Natal dairy farmer Tom Turner puts figures to that reality. He estimated that the outbreak had cost KZN dairy farms approximately R524-million to date, with infected farms facing costs of between R5-million and R10-million, depending on herd size. His own farm, not yet infected, but with confirmed cases within five kilometres on both sides, has already spent R1.5-million on biosecurity and preparedness.

“We have learned that the disease is faster than government bureaucracy,” he said. “We are in week one of this process and expect more clarity next week as supply chains are set up and communication improves.”

A large source of that frustration has been around the treatment of dairy products. In a statement on 20 February 2026, the CEO of Clover, Johann Vorster, said that vaccinated milk was being classified and treated as if it were infected and that the two things had been “wrongly conflated”, with export permits and veterinary attestations applied inconsistently across provinces, effectively shutting down exports of products that were scientifically safe for human consumption.

After these claims, updated FMD regulations were issued on 23 February. Mark Chimes of Milk SA said that milk no longer needed to be pasteurised twice or ultra-high temperature (UHT) treated for local consumption, which was previously one of the most significant regulatory burdens on producers.

“This is a huge, huge step for dairy markets,” Chimes said.

A second change meant that healthy animals pre-emptively vaccinated against FMD would no longer be placed under quarantine or face any movement restrictions.

“With widespread vaccination now happening, this keeps the market open and allows farmers to continue trading,” said Chimes.

According to Jacques van Heerden, Executive: Industrial at Clover, the organisation welcomed the updated requirements, as they were a positive step forward in strengthening disease management and expanding vaccination capacity.

“While we are seeing some changes, consistent implementation by provincial veterinary services remains critical, and on-the-ground challenges persist,” he said.

Turner acknowledged efforts to improve communication through official structures, but said dairy farmers had largely relied on their own networks.

“Most of our support and communication to date has come through the Milk Producers Organisation (MPO), who have worked incredibly hard to support farmers and to communicate with clarity, which has been difficult at times,” said Turner. DM