South Africa's Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), an entity of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI), has invested R14 million in a Molecular Rapid Response and Bio-surveillance Programme run by the biotechnology company TokaBio. The programme is meant to strengthen the country's ability to identify and deal with livestock diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and avian influenza, which have hit farm output and commodity exports, Food for Mzansi reports.
TokaBio operates a mobile laboratory in Modimolle, Limpopo, that works on problems such as bird flu in the ostrich industry, and a laboratory in KwaZulu-Natal that focuses on FMD. For the ostrich sector it has already begun an avian influenza bio-surveillance programme, which the agency sees as a possible template for wider disease surveillance and rapid-response services across livestock.
"South Africa's economy cannot sustain the repeated loss of foreign markets from the recurring disruptions caused by livestock disease outbreaks," said TIA chief executive Dr Titus Mathe. Swift and precise detection, he said, is essential to protect farmers, improve biosecurity and keep South African products competitive abroad, and the investment shows how public money for technology can go beyond research to practical tools used in the field.
TIA board chair Loyiso Tyira said the agency invests, under the DSTI's Bio-Economy Strategy, in technologies that use South Africa's biological resources for food security, agriculture and health, and that this programme shows how funding can move biotechnology from development towards commercial use.
TokaBio's chief scientific officer, Dr Phiyani Lebea, said commercial farming and rural economies depend on access to export markets. The programme, he said, "seeks to ensure that disease outbreaks do not automatically lead to prolonged loss of market access" by improving the country's ability to detect, contain and monitor outbreaks, and to show trading partners that they are under control.
For livestock farmers, faster confirmation of a disease can shorten the time that an outbreak keeps product out of foreign markets. Livestock is a significant part of South Africa's economy, supporting employment, food security and rural livelihoods across the value chain.
Photo: Anagoria / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Food for Mzansi
Comments
(0)