While maintaining international standards, strict state oversight, and regulatory integrity in South Africa's foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) response is essential and uncontested—ensuring strain matching, vaccine quality, and the state as the competent authority—farmers are raising a deeper structural concern: whether the current centralized control system can deliver the biological intensity and sustained rhythm the disease demands.
South Africa is markingWorld Water Day on 22 March 2026 amid growing concern over the state of its freshwater resources, particularly in agriculture and rural areas.
