COURT ORDER: FMD Private Vaccinations Allowed!

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Foot and mouth disease, which I will call FMD from here, has been spreading across South Africa's farmland. Farmers have had access to registered vaccines.

[00:00:12]They've had the money and the capacity to administer them. And the Department of Agriculture said, "No, only the government may vaccinate your animals."

[00:00:23]That was the position stated and defended loudly. There was just one problem. There was no law that said that. On the 25th of May 2026, the high court in Pritoria agreed and farmers through Sarika, the Sar Africa Agri Anishhatif and Free State Agriculture won. Welcome back. If you are a subscriber, thank you. Your support is really appreciated.

[00:00:52]If you are new to the channel, I'm Riandrew and this is the Randrew Show.

[00:01:00]The foot and mouth disease outbreak in South Africa led to a national declaration of emergency. As the disease spread rapidly beyond proclaimed control areas, farmers wanted to act. They wanted to procure registered FMD vaccines through legitimate channels and administer them to their own livestock.

[00:01:22]The Department of Agriculture blocked it. Their position was that only the state could control vaccination. Only the state could administer the FMD vaccine to affected livestock. That is a position with enormous consequences because the state was not keeping pace with the outbreak. Animals were getting sick. The disease was moving. So, Saralikha together with the Sedar Africa Agri Anishhatif more commonly known as Sai and Free State Agriculture took the government to court.

[00:02:00]Their intention was not to user the state's role. They wanted to supplement it and to establish a simple legal point. Show us the law that says farmers cannot vaccinate their own animals.

[00:02:16]Judge Favevestasen's judgment is blunt.

[00:02:19]Let me walk you through what it says.

[00:02:21]The department's position that uh only the government may vaccinate livestock had to be backed by law, an act, a regulation or a validly proclaimed control measure. The judge went looking for that prohibition. He looked at section 9 of the Animal Disease Act, the provision the government relied on. That section gives the minister the power to prescribe control measures. It does not in itself prohibit anything. The judge then asked did the minister actually proclaim any such general measure. The answer on the papers before the court was no. The respondents could not point to one. The government then tried section 20 of the animal disease act.

[00:03:06]The court dismissed that too. Section 20 relates to limitations on research and manufacture of certain products, not to vaccination by livestock owners. It didn't apply. Then came the argument about the animal disease regulations themselves. The court found that those regulations do not prohibit privately administered vaccination. In fact, they appear to contemplate it with duties placed on owners and managers in regulation 11 paragraph 1 and with table two of the regulations referring only to controlled areas. Outside those areas, private vaccination is not prohibited.

[00:03:48]There is also a species gap that the court noted. Table two refers to cattle, sheep, and goats. Pigs are not mentioned. So, privately administered vaccination of pigs was not and is not prohibited. Full stop. When this matter came to court initially, the government's council indicated that a scheme was being hastily drafted and would be gazetted within the week. The matter was stood down to allow for that publication. Time limits were set. Then on the next arranged date, the government's new council asked for a lengthy postponement because they needed time to consider public comments and finalized the scheme. The judge granted a limited postponement, not because the government deserved it, but because the scheme had drawn public comment that warranted inclusion. Eventually, the scheme was gazetted and the government relied on it as their primary defense.

[00:04:46]And the court's response, the gazetted scheme did not outright prohibit privately administered vaccinations and at best it provided for voluntary participation and more significantly it was made in terms of regulation 10 which allows the minister to establish a scheme for controlled purposes or to improve animal health. But the scheme as gazetted didn't actually do either of those things. The judge was direct. No substantive argument was presented on behalf of the government. Lead counsel for the respondent was, in the court's own words, hampered by the lack of evidence. Because when you don't have a legal basis, you can't manufacture one in court, no matter how senior your council.

[00:05:37]The court granted the order Sarikha and co-licants tended. Here is what it means in practice. Owners and managers of cloven hooked livestock may now procure and administer lawfully imported or lawfully manufactured FMD vaccines to their livestock. This applies until any future regulations or control measures are issued that directly amend these terms. The conditions attached are reasonable and responsible, not punitive. Farmers must give at least 5 days written notice to the provincial director of veterary services or the relevant state veterinarian before vaccinating detailing the location, the animals involved, the vaccinators identity, and how the cold chain will be maintained. Within 14 days after the vaccination, a sworn statement must be submitted covering compliance with the animal diseases regulations, cold chain preservation, vaccination method, dosage, vaccine brand, and full animal identification. The order also specifically directs that the first, second, and third respondents, that's the minister of agriculture, the director general, and the director of animal health, may not interfere in the commercial relationships between those who lawfully import FMD vaccines into South Africa and their international suppliers. The court had to tell the department of agriculture not to interfere in a lawful commercial supply chain.

[00:07:12]Costs orders in South African litigation are not just administrative. They are a signal from the court about conduct. The Minister of Agriculture, the Director General and the Director of Animal Health, the first, second, and third respondents are ordered to pay the costs of this application. The judge's reasoning is those respondents failed to set a substantive defense in their answering affidavits. They engineered delays rushed the scheme to the gazette that supplied no evidence and their conduct called for sanction. The applicants, to their credit, did not seek a punitive costs order. They could have. They chose not to. But the ordinary costs order in this context is already a significant finding. The state will pay with taxpayers money for choosing to fight a case it had no legal basis to win.

[00:08:11]Let me tell you what I think the most important thing about this judgment is, and it is not the vaccine itself. It is this. The government assumed it had power. It did not have. And it acted on that assumption aggressively while FMD was spreading. It told farmers they may not vaccinate their own animals, interfered in commercial relationships between lawful vaccine suppliers and their customers and gazetted a scheme in haste to create the appearance of legal authority. And none of it held up. And then the question you have to ask is this. How many decisions made by this department during this crisis were made with the same confidence and the same absence of legal foundation? This is not a DAP specific problem. The institutional instinct to centralize control and shut the private sector out runs deep in South African government across parties and across ministries.

[00:09:16]What sikha sai and free state agriculture did was make that instinct face a court and it failed. That matters for every livestock farmer who has been told during this outbreak that their hands were tired. They were not. They never were. The high court has now confirmed what the law always said.

[00:09:38]Farmers have the right to protect their own livestock. They had it during this entire outbreak. and the department of agriculture with the full resources of the state could not produce a single provision of law that said otherwise. So here is the question I leave with the Minister of Agriculture. How many animals died while your department spent months searching for a prohibition that did not exist.

[00:10:05]It is always appreciated when you share videos with others. If you have not yet subscribed, your support will really be appreciated if you do.

[00:10:15]Do add your thoughts to the comments and I will catch you in the next one.