00:00Farmers in South Africa facing an eruption of foot-and-mouth disease say a government
00:04vaccination effort has come too late. Outbreaks have been spreading since 2021.
00:11In January, authorities rolled out a 10-year drive to immunise nearly 20 million cattle.
00:18Since then, more than a million vaccines have been imported, but the supply is still less
00:23than required. Here in Eastern Cape, people are losing patience.
00:30It was from last year. That disease was coming on. And I don't know why it takes so long.
00:36Because if we were vaccinated early enough, the disease wouldn't have been here.
00:42And we could have not lost that plenty of money.
00:46Other than state-sponsored vaccinations, farmers are bearing the cost of the outbreak themselves,
00:53including sanitation and expensive fodder.
00:58Farmers here already suffered heavy losses during an earlier crisis in 2024.
01:05They're talking a figure of, you know, 5 million rand for, between 5 and 7 million rand per 1,000
01:12cows.
01:14You can work on, say, 6,000 rand a cow, basically, in milk.
01:20And unfortunately, you know, that's the kind of loss that we, as farmers, got to endure.
01:28There's no compensation from anybody.
01:30In recent months, nearly 1,000 outbreaks of the highly contagious viral infection have been reported across the country.
01:39The disease threatens meat, dairy and livestock supplies and exports.
01:46The disease threatens meat, dairy and livestock, dairy and livestock.
01:47The disease threatens meat, dairy and livestock.
01:47The disease threatens meat, dairy and livestock.
01:47The disease threatens meat, dairy and livestock.
01:48The disease threatens meat, dairy and livestock.
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