South Africa's red meat industry needs proper funding, changes in how the state manages animal health, and a bigger say for farmers if it is to reach its growth targets, speakers said at the Road to Recovery event at Nampo Alfa on 2 October. There was broad support for stronger disease control and wider export access, but little agreement on how to get there, Farmer's Weekly reports. Participants agreed to put the points they share into a written statement for their organisations to review and endorse, with requests concerning the Department of Agriculture to go to the minister.
AgriSA chief executive Johann Kotzé urged the industry to raise its concerns about state animal health management with the minister collectively, saying confidence in it had been damaged. His remarks followed accounts of delays in getting foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines, trouble securing export approvals and barriers to cooperation between officials and industry specialists. Dewald Olivier, chief executive of Red Meat Industry Services (RMIS), said industry experts were expected to help win export access without seeing the department's correspondence with trading partners, and he called for a public-private partnership that sets out what each side will do.
Farmers' trust was a recurring theme. Pieter Meyer, Free State chair of the Red Meat Producers' Organisation, called for a bottom-up approach modelled on Meat & Livestock Australia's producer consultations and said levy spending should reflect where the cattle are, citing an estimate that the Free State holds 25% to 28% of the national herd. Free State Agriculture president Francois Wilken said trust had been damaged during the FMD crisis, and that farmers who were ready to pay for vaccines when the threat was immediate have become harder to persuade.
On getting farmers to vaccinate, Dr David Gerber, founder of Dunevax Biotech, proposed a market premium for animals with veterinary certification of vaccination against diseases including FMD, and said talks had been held with feedlots and auctioneers about rewarding vaccination and traceability. Others favoured compulsory vaccination, though Gerber cautioned that legislation alone does not ensure compliance, pointing to brucellosis and lumpy skin disease. Who should pay was left unresolved.
Funding the Red Meat Industry Strategy 2030 was also contested. Olivier acknowledged that implementation is behind where RMIS wants it, said a traceability platform is in place, and noted that the pending levy application provides for only a 5% adjustment over the next four years, below the previous 6%. Some participants said that is not enough; no revised amount was agreed, and the concerns go back to the representative bodies. Sparta Group chief executive Estelle van Reenen said vaccine access had helped her business withstand another outbreak and gave feedlots confidence to keep buying calves.
The report was written by Glenneis Kriel for Farmer's Weekly.
Photo: Oleg Yunakov / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Farmers Weekly South Africa
Comments
(0)