‘Consequences are dire’ if new agriculture minister doesn’t address FMD bottlenecks

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JEREMY MAGGS: The Democratic Alliance (DA) today, wanting John Steenhuisen to be demoted to a deputy minister position and replaced as agriculture minister by Willie Aucamp.

This follows a request by the Democratic Alliance leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, and the story is moving quickly and still nothing at this point from the presidency.

But beyond the cabinet drama, farmers are still dealing with the real-world consequences: vaccine delays, movement restrictions, export damage and deep frustration over the state’s handling of the outbreak.

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Andrew Morphew speaks for Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) Response SA and joins me on the programme now.

Andrew, a very warm welcome. Obviously, you’re aware of what’s happening in the political sphere, does your organisation have any immediate reaction to the call for the minister to be removed?

ANDREW MORPHEW: Jeremy, thanks for having me on. The news obviously came as a shock to us this morning, as I’m sure it has to everyone else.

Our immediate response is obviously that it’s regrettable that it’s come to this. Action needed to be taken. We had highlighted, repeatedly, that the plan was failing.

But to be very clear, from our perspective, this was never about the minister.

We have been working on trying to resolve things and put in place a plan that actually works to solve the problem, which is foot-and-mouth, and that has been our objective, and that will continue to be our objective no matter who is sitting in that seat.

JEREMY MAGGS: Is it a political crisis or still, first and foremost, an animal health crisis?

ANDREW MORPHEW: I think it’s a mix of a lot of different crises. It’s an economic crisis and it’s an animal health crisis, and I think for farmers, it’s a human crisis.

We are seeing that farmers are suffering financially and emotionally.

The animal suffering is just horrific. The economic costs because, as you alluded to, we can’t export, there are quarantines. The direct impact of the economic losses on farmers is massive. So it affects us in a number of different ways.

JEREMY MAGGS: Let’s talk about consequence or we can come back to it. But where do you think government has failed most badly in the short term in its response?

ANDREW MORPHEW: The plan is wrong for what they’re trying to do. That is the first point that we’re making – it is literally they focusing on the wrong target.

They are counting the number of doses arriving in the country and they’re looking at how many animals have been vaccinated over time, when the target should be population immunity.

You need to get all the animals immune at the same time to stop the virus from spreading. That requires us to vaccinate the entire population in six to eight weeks and repeat that every six months, because that is how long a vaccine lasts.

So until you get the target of the plan correct – the goals need to be right – otherwise, you’re never going to be able to get there.

JEREMY MAGGS: Did the court ruling, Andrew, on private vaccination in any way change practical terms for farmers?

ANDREW MORPHEW: Jeremy, practically, it didn’t change anything. Obviously, it made everyone very aware that it was a policy decision which had kept farmers out of the response, and that now needs to be corrected.

We are completely in favour of vaccinating under state control. The state has to be involved. It needs to be in charge of the rollout. It is a state-controlled disease.

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But the only way you get to the scale where we are going to vaccinate enough animals to stop the disease is to have all hands on deck and everyone working to vaccinate animals and to stop the spread of the disease.

JEREMY MAGGS: As we have this conversation, are farmers actually getting vaccines or do bottlenecks still exist?

ANDREW MORPHEW: No, there are huge bottlenecks. Farmers are battling to get vaccine and it is a huge crisis.

We are seeing vaccinated animals that are being infected now post-vaccination, and that is purely because the animals around them have not yet been vaccinated, and the viral load, the challenge on those animals is still so high that even the vaccine is not preventing those outbreaks.

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So unless we can fill in all those gaps and do it very quickly, as I say in a six to eight-week period, we need to vaccinate everything so that all the animals reach peak immunity. At the same time, we starve the virus, until we can do that, this will perpetuate.

JEREMY MAGGS: And if we don’t reach that deadline that you’re referencing.

ANDREW MORPHEW: The consequences are dire. We will end up fighting this disease and chasing our tails forever, and farmers can’t afford that financial cost.

I spoke to someone this morning who is going to the bank today to ask for a R5 million loan to cover the losses of a foot-and-mouth outbreak on their dairy farm, and there’s a limit to the number of times the bank is going to extend that line of credit to you.

So there will be huge economic consequences, job losses, food inflation as a result of this, if we don’t get on top of it.

JEREMY MAGGS: Now, you say to me it was never about the minister, but has government, in other words, the minister, listened properly to farmers, to vets, to industry experts on the ground?

ANDREW MORPHEW: No, and I think that is one of the problems. From our perspective, certainly we’ve tried repeatedly to engage. We have had a successful engagement recently, in the last week, I would say.

Listen/read: Foot-and-mouth crisis triggers SA’s biggest ever cattle vaccination

But the reports, especially coming out of critical places like the ministerial task team, where they have not been given adequate amount of attention.

The allegation there is that the minister only ever spent 10 minutes with them on an online platform. I can’t verify that, but those are the stories you hear coming out.

So by that measure, I would say no, they have not been listened to and the experts and scientists who have been repeatedly calling for a better response, a more organised response, a more scientifically and biologically driven response do not seem to have been heard.

JEREMY MAGGS: If there is a new agriculture minister, what should be the first instruction on day one?

ANDREW MORPHEW: My recommendation is speak to your Ministerial Task Team, speak to the people who have been involved in the response on the ground, understand where the bottlenecks are and remove those.

That is the only way we’re going to scale this thing up. We now have vaccine in the country. We’ve got a lot of vaccine on the way.

Vaccine is no longer the constraint. We need to remove the bottlenecks and vaccinate at the speed and scale that this disease requires.

JEREMY MAGGS: Does FMD Response SA have a preferred candidate?

ANDREW MORPHEW: We don’t. We will work with whoever is in the seat and we look forward to continuing to work with the government in solving this. So whoever is serving as the minister of agriculture, we will engage with readily.

JEREMY MAGGS: Andrew Morphew, thank you very much indeed. He speaks for FMD Response SA.