National Biosecurity Summit tackles trade wars and foot-and-mouth disease challenges

The National Biosecurity Summit, opening today and running until tomorrow at the University of Pretoria, will see leaders, experts and stakeholders from the public and private sectors gather to tackle issues such as the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) that is raging in KwaZulu-Natal and threatening to spread to other provinces.

Commenting ahead of the summit hosted by the National Biosecurity Hub, Dr Marinda Visser, Director: Strategic Projects and Partnerships in Agriculture, Innovation Africa at the University of Pretoria, said biosecurity was a system and it “works best when all the stakeholders are communicating with one another”.

The Biosecurity Hub is a platform created jointly by the university and the government to promote communication and collaboration on human, animal and plant sanitary threats affecting food security.

Dr Visser said getting all stakeholders to communicate was of critical importance; it was the “north star” of the hub and the “key strategic goal” of the summit, she said.

Responding to a question as to whether South Africa, through the hub, was winning the battle against such diseases as the FMD and the avian flu that have severely disrupted red meat and poultry supply chains, Dr Visser said “it is early days for the response against FMD”, and stressed that the strategic actions undertaken to prevent avian flu were “world-standard” and “fit for purpose”.

Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen was expected to be among the main speakers at the summit whose theme is “Collaborative Actions for Food Security and Trade”.

The summit comes at a time when authorities and experts are battling to contain the KwaZulu-Natal FMD outbreak, which has spread to Mpumalanga and Gauteng. At the same time, an avian flu outbreak affecting the poultry sector in Brazil was creating a “perfect storm” complicating both red meat and chicken availability and prices in South Africa.

It also comes at a time when global trade has been disrupted by US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” campaign.

Just over a month ago, Trump declared April 2, as "Liberation Day" and announced sweeping tariffs with devastating economic effects for many countries around the world including South Africa and its neighbouring countries like Lesotho.

Dr Visser said these issues will inform the summit’s discussions, particularly on the second day during a session on market access and surveillance, and one titled “National Biosecurity Diagnostic Network: Protection through Cooperation”.

The summit was expected to open with a discussion around the role public-private partnerships can play to leverage resources and expertise to address shared challenges.