OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Tuesday
FARMERS in the KwaZulu Natal Midlands face financial ruin if government officials go ahead with a plan to slaughter all livestock in a bid to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which threatens to devastate the South African agricultural industry.
The prospect of a pre-emptive slaughtering campaign – and resulting financial disaster – is causing sleepless nights for farmers within a five kilometre radius of the two affected farms in Camperdown where the highly infectious disease has been diagnosed.
“It’s going to wipe us out,” said one farmers’ wife. “We’ve got 200 head of prize-winning cattle and what will the government do for us if they’re slaughtered?
“I bet we’ll be paid the very bottom price they can find,” she said, struggling to hold back her tears. “It’s our lives and expertise in that herd.”
KwaZulu-Natal Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Brian Weaver, offered a ray of hope for the worried farmers, saying that all tests since last week have been negative.
“All we can do now is wait and hope for the next three weeks until we can test again,” he said.
More than 700 pigs and 50 cattle have already been slaughtered on the pig farm in Camperdown where the disease first broke out last week, prompting officials to impose a total prohibition on the movement of livestock in a 10km zone around the farm.
Officials were hopeful the outbreak had been contained, but on Friday a cow on an adjacent farm tested positive for the disease, which is believed to have been carried in pig feed from a ship in Durban harbour. It was possibly imported from India, Thailand or the Middle East, where this strain of the disease is prevalent.
The police’s elite Scorpions crime unit has joined customs and excise officials, as well as the animal feed dealer who first purchased the contaminated pig swill, in a bid to track down the whereabouts of the ship which carried the disease to South Africa.
The outbreak of the trade-sensitive disease threatens the country’s meat industry, and at least six countries have already banned livestock and animal products from South Africa.