Farmers left in distress

FOOT-AND-MOUTH FALLOUT: STATE FAILURES LEAVE HERDS DYING – CLAIM >>→ Outbreak leaves 'bulls infertile, calves dead and families desperate'.

- Marizka Coetzer

UNDER FIRE. Farmers are unhappy with Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen.

(AFP)

For farmers like Gerhard Cloete in the Free State, promises by Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen to deal with the foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease have come too late.

After 42 years of paying his workers without fail, Cloete broke down as he described how FMD wiped out his income, decimated his herd and left him under quarantine with no way to trade.

His story is echoed across quarantined districts, where farmers say state failures have turned a controllable outbreak into a catastrophe.

Cloete said one of his neighbours phoned him on 18 November and told him to get his cattle away from the fence because FMD was reported in the area.