CAPE TOWN, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- The ongoing foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks in South Africa are expected to inflict heavy economic losses on the beef and dairy industries, two of the country's largest agricultural sub-sectors, a report has warned.
The report "Initial Cost Estimates Linked to the FMD Crisis," recently released by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), said that a total of 24,400 FMD cases were reported in domestic livestock in South Africa, a figure "significantly surpassed" the previous 20-year-high of 7,700 FMD cases in 2022.
BFAP is a South African-based non-profit organization that provides independent, data-driven research and policy analysis for the agricultural and food sectors.
According to the report, the FMD spread to eight of the country's nine provinces, excluding only the Northern Cape, for the first time on record in 2025, with nearly 21,600 cases reported in the second half of the year.
As a result, South Africa's beef exports for the first 11 months of 2025 fell to 24,773 tons, down from 38,677 tons in the same period of 2024.
"Between 2025 and 2026, it is expected that the volume of beef exports could decrease to roughly 13,000 tons, with a 1.8 billion rand (about 113 million U.S. dollars) reduction in export earnings," said the report.
It also noted that more than 821 million rand in South Africa's beef export revenue was lost during three major waves of the FMD in the country between 2019 and 2025, warning that "this total figure could increase to 2.6 billion rand by the end of 2026 at the current trajectory."
According to the analysis, between 2025 and 2030, the economic fallout of FMD outbreaks could reach 3.2 billion rand for the beef industry under a medium-burden scenario and around 11.3 billion rand under a high-burden scenario.
In the report, BFAP cited its earlier estimates as saying that losses to the beef industry output could accumulate to 25.6 billion rand over the next 10 years.
The economic impact of the FMD on the dairy sector has also been severe. With more than 90 dairy farms affected by mid-January 2026, involving over 210,000 dairy animals, "this economic loss is over one billion rand to date," said the report.
Based on case studies in the Eastern Cape, it noted that economic losses per cow reached close to 5,000 rand due to reduced milk production, additional husbandry costs, veterinary expenses, and other associated impacts.
"Many dairy farms might opt to close down, which will lead to major job losses in rural areas," it added. ■
