SAAI’s De Jager Slams Steenhuisen Over Foot-and-Mouth Crisis

Theo de Jager, executive chair of the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI), has delivered a scathing rebuke of Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen’s handling of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak, accusing the minister of sidelining scientific expertise and punishing those who raise legitimate concerns.

Speaking on the growing crisis in the livestock sector, De Jager said that anyone who “dares to voice criticism” of the minister’s policy, or the implementation of that policy, is “pushed out, excluded, isolated, targeted, and treated with suspicion.” He argued that this climate explains the removal of Dr Danie Odendaal from the ministerial task team.

Odendaal, a respected figure in animal health, was removed from the task team after refusing to sign a confidentiality agreement. According to De Jager, the official reason given was Odendaal’s refusal to sign, but he rejected the idea that transparency should be curtailed during a national livestock emergency. Odendaal, he said, refused to be part of a “conspiracy in the dark” and believed the task team’s work should remain in the public domain.

De Jager praised Odendaal’s 40-year career, saying he had consistently placed science above politics and had not hesitated to ask questions that made politicians uncomfortable. Among those questions were claims that the department had not attended task team meetings and had failed to adopt its recommendations. He also raised concerns about the sidelining of Design Biologics, one of South Africa’s leading laboratories, in favour of state institutions such as the Agricultural Research Council, despite earlier promises of public-private partnerships.

A central flashpoint in the dispute is the vaccine response. De Jager said the so-called “new” vaccine, which had been recently launched had already been registered in 2022 under the same registration number. The real scandal, he argued, is that it was not placed on a mass production line, a delay he believes could have cost thousands of farms and hundreds of thousands of cattle.

With FMD spreading rapidly, De Jager said the minister should have chosen transparency to rebuild trust among farmers. Instead, he argued, the department has moved against critics while no senior official responsible for biosecurity failures has been called before a disciplinary committee.

SAAI has now invited farmers and consumers to submit objections to Odendaal’s removal, with the intention of presenting them in their thousands to the minister. De Jager warned that the removal casts doubt on the integrity and credibility of the task team.

As the outbreak continues to threaten export markets, rural employment, and food security, the confrontation signals a widening rift between organised agriculture and the state. For farmers already under pressure from disease controls and trade restrictions, the dispute raises deeper questions about whether science or politics is steering South Africa’s response.