‘I don’t know how I’ll pay workers’: Farmers in distress amid FMD outbreak

For farmers like Gerhard Cloete in the Free State, promises by Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen to deal with the foot‑and‑mouth (FMD) disease have come too late.

After 42 years of paying his workers without fail, Cloete broke down as he described how FMD wiped out his income, decimated his herd and left him under quarantine with no way to trade.

Herd infected and quarantined

His story is echoed across quarantined districts, where farmers say state failures have turned a controllable outbreak into a catastrophe.

Cloete said one of his neighbours phoned him on 18 November and told him to get his cattle away from the fence because FMD was reported in the area.

“I took away about 26 cattle and put them in a camp to monitor them. When I arrived at the camp on 25 November, three of the cattle started foaming at the mouth,” he said.

“I contacted the state, which sent someone the following day to take samples of the cattle and vaccinate 26 cows and one bull.

“By 5 December, my other herd was also infected. I contacted the state again, which came to vaccinate the infected cattle and placed me under quarantine.

“Now I can’t sell any of my cattle because they were marked with an F on the neck, which means I don’t have an income for the next year.”

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Desperate need for vaccines

Cloete said there were people selling vaccines at R550 per dose.

“Where they got it, I don’t know. So if you had 600 cattle, do the maths.”

Cloete asked why the likes of beef producer Karan Beef were first to get vaccines for cattle waiting in a feedlot to be slaughtered, while farmers’ cattle have to roam the fields with swollen tongues, infected hooves had to wait.

“I can’t push the cow around on a wheelbarrow to the water and salt licks. The farmers needed those vaccines more desperately,” he said.

“Now they talk about what should have or could have happened, but that doesn’t help us now.

Loss of income and cattle

“What now? I have to pay my workers and my policies, and I don’t know how for the first time in 42 years.”

ALSO READ: Can John Steenhuisen weather the foot-and-mouth disease storm?

He lost a bull, 12 big cows and 20 calves to FMD. Bulls are worth more than R100 000.

He said some of the bulls are now infertile after suffering from high fever, they are weak and can’t walk.

Cloete said he knocked on many doors for help to cover the farms’ running costs, which add up to about R140 000 a month.

“If I were able to sell cattle, I wouldn’t be in this situation,” he said.

Lichtenburg farmer Charl van Staden said his family’s farm has lost about 100 cows.

“You come across cows just lying dead. It’s because of the government that we are in this position,” he said.

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