Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen has called on Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states to urgently strengthen regional co-operation on food security, fertiliser regulation and animal disease control amid growing economic and climate-related pressures.
Steenhuisen made the call while addressing the SADC Joint Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Agriculture, Food Security, Fisheries and Aquaculture in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, on Friday.
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The meeting comes at a time of increasing global uncertainty, with rising input costs, supply chain disruptions and climate-related disasters placing added strain on agricultural systems.
“Across the world, we are seeing disruptions to supply chains, rising input costs, particularly fertiliser prices, inflationary pressures, and growing competition over strategic resources,” Steenhuisen said.
These global shocks are increasingly intersecting with climate-related disasters, including droughts, floods and disease outbreaks in ways that directly affect African agriculture and food systems.
Although regional cereal production has improved following last season’s drought, he said food insecurity remains a major concern.
According to Steenhuisen, an estimated 58 million people across SADC member states still face acute food insecurity due to challenges in access and affordability.
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“This reality demands urgency from all of us,” he said.
Steenhuisen told delegates that efforts to harmonise fertiliser regulations across the region could no longer be delayed.
“We cannot continue entering each planting season fragmented by unharmonised standards, duplicative registration systems and regulatory bottlenecks that unnecessarily increase costs for farmers and slow regional trade,” he said.
He urged member states to fast-track a proposed memorandum of understanding on the harmonisation of fertiliser regulatory frameworks, and in “South Africa’s view, should be fast-tracked well before 2027”.
“This is not simply a technical regulatory exercise, it is a food security imperative, a productivity imperative and increasingly a strategic resilience imperative for the entire region,” Steenhuisen said.
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The minister also warned about the growing threat posed by foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), with outbreaks reported in 11 SADC countries.
The scale of the outbreak, according to Steenhuisen, should be a concern to all, as for many families across the region, livestock was not just a simple commercial asset but represented stores of “wealth, sources of nutrition, draft power, school fees and household survival”.
When animal disease spreads unchecked, the impact reaches far beyond the farm gate. It affects food affordability, market access, export earnings and economic stability across the entire region.
Steenhuisen supported the development of a regional framework for FMD control, including stronger surveillance systems, improved information sharing, harmonised movement controls and co-ordinated vaccination programmes.
He also backed proposals for a regional FMD vaccine bank.
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“Animal diseases do not respect borders. A weakness in one part of the region quickly becomes a vulnerability for all of us,” he said.
Steenhuisen said SADC countries must move beyond fragmented implementation and focus on practical delivery through increased agricultural trade, climate resilience, irrigation investment and greater opportunities for women and young people.
He reaffirmed South Africa’s commitment to working with regional partners to strengthen agricultural resilience and improve food security across Southern Africa.
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