Risk assessment in South Africa's red meat value chain

The South African red meat sector operates in a high-risk environment where operational, climate, financial, and systemic hazards converge, threatening the stability and long-term resilience of the value chain.

- By Dr Danie Jordaan, Sibongile Dlamini, Thabile Tsabedze, Andrea du Toit, and Wesly Mokomele

These risks are often interconnected and collectively undermine the sector's sustainability.

A persistent source of disruption is animal disease, particularly foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), which continues to resurface in the country despite government control measures. With several provinces and zones designated as disease management areas and localised outbreaks occurring regularly, the weaknesses in South Africa's biosecurity systems and disease surveillance capacity are increasingly evident.

Climate variability compounds these biological risks. Prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, extreme temperatures, and periodic flooding put severe pressure on natural resources and animal health. These environmental shocks degrade production conditions and increase systemic vulnerability across the value chain.

Inadequate rural infrastructure, especially deteriorating road networks, exacerbates the impact of climate and biological risks by limiting market access, raising transaction costs, and slowing the movement of essential inputs, livestock, and outputs across the chain.

Related pressures

Beyond the farmgate, downstream segments also face additional pressures. Processing and logistics remain vulnerable to energy supply disruptions, transport inefficiencies, and quality and safety risks. Market concentration in the processing and retail sectors restricts competition and limits opportunities for especially smaller producers. In addition, consumer-related concerns such as inconsistent product quality, food safety issues, and limited transparency are eroding public trust and weaken the demand for South African red meat, locally and abroad.