Free State Agriculture urges Steenhuisen to act as foot-and-mouth disease outbreak worsens

Advocacy group Free State Agriculture (FSA) has called on Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen to act immediately to deal with the current outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

The sector has seen the worst outbreak of the disease throughout most of 2025 and the beginning of 2026. 

The outbreak started in KwaZulu-Natal and has now spread throughout the whole country. Provinces like the Free State, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the North West are among the worst affected.

The minister has announced plans to start a vaccination drive next month.

But commercial manager at the FSA, Dr Jack Armour, said this was not good enough. 

Armour said the minister needed to act now.

"The minister needs to take this seriously with the amount of cattle that are dying, so it is an economic crisis and could potentially be a food security crisis. There's a rollout plan and other things that are coming, but for right now, the Free State doesn't have vaccines."