Latest news with #AgriculturalResearchCouncil
eNCA
5 days ago
- Health
- eNCA
Parliament calls for local production of foot & mouth disease vaccine
CAPE TOWN - Parliament's Agriculture Portfolio Committee has warned of dire consequences if the prevailing foot and mouth disease outbreak is not reined in speedily. Experts from the Agricultural Research Council were on hand to account to the Committee and give a progress update on the implementation of their Audit Improvement Plans.
IOL News
22-07-2025
- Health
- IOL News
South Africa's livestock industry under siege: Steenhuisen's call for urgent reforms
Minister John Steenhuisen delivers the opening address at the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Indaba, outlining urgent reforms to strengthen South Africa's livestock disease response system. Image: File In a hard-hitting address at the Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) Indaba on Monday, Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen painted a stark picture of South Africa's livestock industry under siege, not just from disease outbreaks but from a 'broken system' plagued by policy failure, institutional fatigue and outdated response models. Speaking to a packed venue of scientists, veterinarians, agricultural leaders and government officials, Steenhuisen warned that if the country continues with its current fragmented approach, it will remain vulnerable to future outbreaks and economic devastation. 'What we saw was a response system stretched to its limits, with breakdowns in communication, severe delays in vaccine availability, confusion over movement controls, and an alarming lack of readiness at several levels of government,' said Steenhuisen. 'Farmers were unsure of the measures. Provinces were uncertain of the protocols. And while the virus spread, trust in the state's capacity to respond continued to erode.' The minister identified four urgent areas of reform: regionalisation, vaccine security, infrastructure development, and investment in research and development. He announced the appointment of senior veterinarians Dr Emily Mogajane and Dr Nomsa Mnisi to lead the development of a national regionalisation framework that will define disease control zones, improve provincial coordination, and align with constitutional mandates. 'The failure to regionalise is not due to a lack of veterinary science. It is due to a lack of institutional coordination, legal clarity and capacity,' he said, emphasising that trade partners penalised the entire country despite outbreaks being limited to specific zones. Addressing vaccine shortages, Steenhuisen called for private sector co-investment in a national vaccine bank. 'We were compelled to import vaccines from Botswana just to mount even a partial response. This is unsustainable,' he said. 'If you want predictability, you must also invest.' Infrastructure was also in the spotlight, particularly in FMD protection zones. Steenhuisen announced new fiscal allocations to build local feedlots and abattoirs in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, aiming to curb illegal livestock movement that undermines disease control. 'These facilities will provide alternatives to illicit trade. They will create rural jobs,' he said. Looking ahead, the minister underscored the importance of animal science and climate resilience. 'We must elevate the Agricultural Research Council to the same level as its international counterparts,' he said, proposing partnerships with institutions like the University of Pretoria's Biosecurity Hub and leveraging statutory levies for R&D. But the message was not only one of critique, it was a rallying cry for unity and action. 'This Indaba is not about apportioning blame. It is about fixing what has gone wrong,' Steenhuisen said. 'We must break the cycle of reactive containment and move toward proactive, coordinated disease management.' IOL News
The Citizen
21-07-2025
- Health
- The Citizen
Government, experts unite at Indaba to tackle foot-and-mouth disease
South Africa is experiencing significant and ongoing challenges with widespread outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), affecting several provinces, including KZN, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and, most recently, the Free State. The resurgence of the disease has resulted in livestock movement restrictions and significantly impacted the country's red meat trade on international markets. In response to the escalating crisis, the Department of Agriculture, in partnership with the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), the University of Pretoria and Onderstepoort Biological Products, is hosting a national Foot-and-Mouth Disease Indaba. The two-day event, today and tomorrow, is taking place at the ARC-VIMP Campus in Roodeplaat, northeast of Pretoria. Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen and Deputy Minister Nokuzola Capa will lead the Indaba, which aims to bring together top veterinary scientists, agricultural experts and key industry stakeholders to deliberate on and develop long-term solutions to combat FMD. 'Having already inflicted significant damage to the multibillion-rand livestock sector, the disease continues to threaten South Africa's broader economy. Therefore, the Indaba presents a vital opportunity to unite expertise and resources to effectively eradicate this devastating disease. 'The Indaba will convene a range of multidisciplinary specialists to develop a coordinated and comprehensive approach to controlling and ultimately eradicating foot-and-mouth disease,' the department said in a statement. Key areas of discussion will include strengthening biosecurity measures at farm level, enhancing vaccination programmes and reinforcing animal movement controls. The Department of Agriculture, in collaboration with the Agricultural Research Council, emphasised its commitment to identifying and implementing sustainable solutions to FMD. The department added that the Indaba signifies a crucial advancement in the ongoing efforts to combat the disease. 'By cultivating strong partnerships between government entities, academic institutions and industry leaders, the Department of Agriculture is committed to developing precise and effective measures that will eradicate the disease and safeguard the long-term sustainability of South Africa's agricultural sector.' – Breaking news at your fingertips… Follow Caxton Network News on Facebook and join our WhatsApp channel. Nuus wat saakmaak. Volg Caxton Netwerk-nuus op Facebook en sluit aan by ons WhatsApp-kanaal. Read original story on At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Daily Maverick
11-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Maverick
Bugs sent into battle — meet the SA team using insects instead of pesticides to tackle invasive plants
Sustenance farmers are hit the hardest by the impacts of invasive plant species. Scientists are working to change that, but they face challenges. South African farmers spend about R1,200 per hectare on weed control, including herbicide application and other methods, according to an estimation from 2021. Their costs also include diesel for machinery, crop insurance and harvesting. Although commercial farmers feel the costs, they often have resources to buy pesticides, herbicides and manual labour to ensure their crops do well and the land is workable. Daily Maverick visited sustenance farmers in northern KwaZulu-Natal who were losing thousands of their goats to an illness they claim is from an invasive plant species – parthenium. In KwaNongoma, the weed is visible throughout the grazing land, and it is highly competitive with grass. It also causes rashes in children after long-term exposure, along with other effects. Daily Maverick visited the Plant Health and Protection unit of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC-PHP) in Hilton, Pietermaritzburg, where scientists focus on ecologically sound management strategies for agricultural pests, plant diseases and invasive plants. One of the researchers, Lorraine Strathie, said invasive plant species can be controlled by bringing insects from their country of origin to feed on them here. But if this sounds simple, it is not. The process takes devotion, trial and error and collaboration. 'For example, parthenium is indigenous to the lands around the Gulf of Mexico in North America. So in its native range, in their native range, plants have evolved for millions of years, and they have natural enemies in the form of insects which feed on them, fungi and other pathogens. So it's what we call top-down control,' she said. 'So, they reduce their reproductive output, the number of seeds they produce, and their growth rates. And these insects, many of these natural enemies, because the plants produce defensive chemicals, most of the insects and fungi that feed on them have become highly specialised to get around those chemicals and other defences. So they become highly, what we call host-specific – they only feed on one species of plant.' Entomologists and those in related sciences dedicate years to understanding which control agents are likely to be suitable to bring to South Africa. When the insects get here they are quarantined and numerous tests and observations are done to make sure they don't have a taste for South African plants, which would add them to a long list of pests instead of control agents. 'So one of the main theories is that when a plant is taken out of its native environment and brought to another continent, the natural enemies don't come with it because it comes as a seed, and then it can grow without any kind of top-down control. And its growth rates increase, its seed output increases, and it outcompetes the local plants. Then it becomes invasive,' Strathie said. The ARC-PHP was established in 1962 with the amalgamation of the divisions of eEntomology and plant pathology of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Challenges The challenge with this science is that it can take time and needs the land these agents have been placed on to not be disturbed by pesticides, herbicides and building. This requires land owners to cooperate with the team so they can check the population they have released every year to see how much it has grown, how far it has spread and the impact. To achieve optimal biological control, studies have shown that 'integrating various biological control options that include classical biological control, mycoherbicides and suppressive plants with management tools such as chemical, physical, grazing management and cultural management is desirable'. Dr Costas Zachariades, officer-in-charge and senior researcher in the ARC-PHP, explained that the population starts breeding by itself and feeds on the plant, and spreads by itself. 'So once we've got past that stage of what we call establishing the population, then it becomes self-sustaining, and it doesn't need any more human intervention. And so with weed control you have to keep on spraying with herbicide, uprooting manually, doing what you're doing. So there's always human intervention required on an ongoing basis, whereas with weed biocontrol, that is not needed. So it's a long-term, sustainable solution. The downsides are that it takes a long time,' Zachariades said. It could take up to 20 years for the biocontrol agent to reach its full potential – that is, being widespread over large areas, the plant has decreased and invasive plant growth is naturally stifled. But it could be effective in three to five years, according to the scientists. Community resistance Affected people, such as those in agricultural communities with small-scale farmers, have been resistant to the idea, worried that the agents will start eating their crops once the weeds are gone. Strathie emphasised that this is the core of their work in the quarantine lab, over and above growing the insect population – they do a number of tests to ensure the agent only eats that weed and nothing else. 'It's a very common perception. A lot of growers will know that some insects or pathogens can be highly host-specific,' she said. Even in the case of lantana, which had many different hybrids and varieties, some of the insects were so specific that they might only go for a certain colour of a certain hybrid. The agents could have certain chemical cues they required for attraction to a plant, as well as for mating and feeding. 'So the natural enemies we're using are really host-specific.' In the lab the team showed how the insects are not only plant-specific but eat specific parts of the plant – some eat the stem, some like the leaves, some lay eggs on the flowers, thereby crippling the invasive plant's growth. '… we ensure that whatever is released into the environment is completely safe. I mean, the science of weed biocontrol has been around for 112 years in South Africa, and South Africa is one of the leading countries in the world in this science. So it's quite a small community of weed biocontrol researchers in the country, but the science is very rigorous, we're not going to be introducing something that's going to be potentially harmful on other plants,' Strathie added. Funding This work appears to be significant in ensuring biodiversity, especially as civil society organisations are calling for the banning of a number of pesticides. And this team considers itself lucky because it receives funding from the Department of Agriculture, while other teams doing similar work have stopped due to a lack of funding. 'Funding, I think, globally is challenging, and invasive species often are not recognised for the level of importance of how they impact on people's livelihoods, not only from conservation, but food production and health,' Strathie said 'And I think there's generally not a common understanding of what kind of impact they may have. And I think [that] for research it's critical, and especially this type of research needs sustained funding for long periods, and once you have a biological control agent to be able to reap the benefits of all that investment. Developing a biocontrol agent, you then need government's national support to ensure it's rolled out to its full benefit.' Mass rearing for impact The team explained that a mass release of the tried-and-tested control agents has made an impact in biocontrol in affected provinces such as Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. This is made possible by the Department of Agriculture, which has been supporting the programme since 2023. 'But also previously, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) were the major funders for biological control of weeds in South Africa. So there was a lot of R&D done in those decades with DFFE that we now also benefit from South Africa being able to [mass-rear] those agents,' Strathie said. Zachariades added that they have six major weeds currently, for which they have multiple biocontrol agents being mass reared at the unit and at Brunner Plot in Pretoria, a sister institute. Which meant that, if there were no more funding to mass-rear the agents, 'we can hasten their impact by releasing more of them and more often at many sites'. 'So, for example, for parthenium insect agents, we've got three of them, and we've got something like 400 release points already, and those will just keep increasing in KZN and Mpumalanga, because those are where the weed is most prevalent at the moment. It's in other provinces as well, but those are where it's really severely invading.' The team had also mass-reared agents for commelina, lantana pompom weed ('which is problematic on the high field at this stage') and Tecoma stans, or yellow bells ('it's become a big weed along the coast here') as well as the Mexican sunflower, all of which pose a threat to indigenous flora. DM
The Herald
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Herald
Commercialisation of Agricultural Research Council under way, says Steenhuisen
Agriculture minister John Steenhuisen says plans for a strategic commercial entity under the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), which will compete with other commercial agricultural entities, are under way. In a parliamentary question, EFF MP Mothusi Montwedi asked whether there was a plan to ensure the ARC was supported to build internal capacity for its commercialisation. Montwedi also asked if this commercialisation drive would allow the ARC to supply seeds and develop fertiliser for the market. In a written reply, Steenhuisen said the agriculture department valued the ARC as a strategic asset, especially in the agricultural industry, and the many strategies of the department have ensured its successful commercialisation. 'A service level agreement between the department and the ARC is entered into to ensure all agricultural research services for which the ARC has the capacity to render are rendered in compliance with the constitution. This [agreement] helps the ARC generate about R900m in revenue,' he said. The department approved the restructuring of the ARC to ensure efficiency and alignment with agricultural business realities. 'The process of establishing the ARC's commercial entity is under way. Once established, the commercial entity will enable the ARC to maximise returns from its intellectual property. This includes competing with other players in the agricultural business.' Steenhuisen said the restructuring was almost complete and would ensure all vacancies are filled, critical infrastructure refurbished and agricultural enterprises operated profitably. TimesLIVE
