The livestock and poultry industries account for nearly half of South Africa’s farming fortunes. So when there are frequent cases of animal disease, there tends to be panic about the impact on growth. In recent years the cattle industry has struggled with foot-and-mouth disease, leading to temporary closures of some key export markets and an increasing financial burden on farmers.
The Department of Agriculture, in collaboration with organised agriculture, has explored ways to contain the spread of the disease. Still, its ongoing occurrence and severity this year compelled South Africa to adjust its longstanding approach to addressing foot-and-mouth disease and transition to national vaccination. We welcome this decision and believe that if executed well, it will help the country control the disease.
South Africa is not the first country to take this path. Argentina and Brazil are among the countries that have opted for vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease in cattle. When any country has managed to control the disease, vaccination typically stops or pauses.
The scale of this work will be challenging, as South Africa has a cattle herd of over 12 million, according to the “Abstract of South African Agricultural Statistics” from the Department of Agriculture. Co-operation with commercial farmers, agribusinesses, organised agriculture and communities will be vital to ensure the success of the vaccination process.
Significantly, South Africa currently relies on imports of the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine, mainly from Botswana. In this new approach, diversifying import sources to include countries such as Turkey should be a key consideration. The work to revive the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) to produce the essential vaccines domestically is key and must gain momentum.
South Africa must also ensure that other private sector stakeholders are part of vaccine production. Private labs must be included in the vaccination production to diversify the supply and ensure domestic availability in the future.
From a consumer perspective, South Africa’s beef and livestock products are safe to consume.
Vaccination and food price inflation
Moreover, in our view, the start of national cattle vaccination is unlikely to introduce major upside risks to meat price inflation. The vaccination process does not change the path to easing food price inflation in South Africa.
We believe that the vaccination process is likely to be phased, allowing continuous slaughtering at the normal pace. In the medium term, efforts to control the disease also bring some normality to the slaughter process and ease price volatility.
We are highlighting meat because it has been one product in the food basket that has exerted upward price pressure after the announcement of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in major feedlots led some retailers to panic.
This, however, has now eased, and meat price inflation is slowing, contributing to the general easing of food price inflation in November 2025. South Africa’s consumer food price inflation slowed for the third consecutive month, easing to 3.9% in October, from 4.4% in the previous months.
The primary drivers of the deceleration were mainly fruit and nuts, vegetables, meat, sugar, confectionery and desserts. Ample supplies, combined with the base effects, contribute to the easing of price inflation in these products.
While modestly up from the previous reading, cereal products inflation also remains relatively low on the back of the ample grain harvest. South Africa’s 2024/25 summer grains and oilseed harvest is estimated at 20.08-million tonnes (up 30% year on year). The various fruits and vegetables also delivered ample harvests.
Overall, we remain optimistic that South Africa’s consumer food price inflation will continue to moderate. The benefits of lower grain prices, ample fruit and vegetable supplies, and potentially easing meat prices will continue to be the major drivers of the deceleration. We don’t see meat as a significant upside risk on prices.
Ongoing challenges and outlook
The challenge of foot-and-mouth disease in South Africa is not over and continues to put pressure on farmers, even as vaccination is underway. Typically, during foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks, the country is temporarily closed to some export markets, leading to a drop in consumer prices.
But this year we saw the opposite. Initially, panic buying driven by retailers’ announcements, rather than a product shortage, was the main driver of meat prices, combined with buoyant consumer demand. We now see an easing of these upward price pressures. As the vaccination process gains momentum in the coming months, we expect to see more normalisation.
Source: Sunday Times via Wandile Sihlobo,chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa. He writes the AgriView newsletter.
