My name is Noko Masipa. I am a member of parliament and the shadow Minister for Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development. Given what I have seen happening in the livestock sector in our country, South Africa will soon be faced with a food insecurity crisis. 

The South African livestock sector represents nearly 50% of the total value of agricultural production in the country. The way in which South African farmers protect their livestock (a major source of food security for the country and the southern African region) is largely through inoculation (vaccination) against diseases such as African Horse sickness, Rift Valley fever, bluetongue disease, heartwater, anaplasmosis, red water and lumpy skin disease, to name only a few. 

The Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), a state owned entity, is the only institution in South Africa with registered animal vaccine strains to  manufacture vaccines against blue-tongue, African Horse Sickness and Rift Valley Fever diseases for livestock in the country. In 2014, R500-million was approved by parliament for the OBP to upgrade the facility from ISO 9000 - compliant to Good Manufacturing compliant. This was done to address the challenges relating to vaccine shortages and the poor performances of certain vaccines.

Despite this, there has been a major shortage of vaccines from OBP in the past year. The effects of this shortage has resulted in carnage. Hundreds of horses have died, in this year alone, from African Horse disease because OBP could not supply farmers with vaccines. This disease cannot be cured once contracted. It can only be guarded against by being inoculated timeously.

Because OBP cannot keep up with its manufacturing demands, farmers, and all South Africans, call on the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to:

• ensure that registered vaccine strains that have been developed by the Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute, with taxpayer’s money, are made available to private companies and/other companies within the Republic of South Africa with the capacity to produce vaccines; and
• ease the regulatory bottle-necks created by the Directorate of Agricultural Inputs around the registration of such vaccines.

It is essential that companies other than OBP are allowed to manufacture vaccines for the sake of our animals, and our people’s food security!