John Steenhuisen under siege

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen is under fire after a leaked email raised questions about his department’s dedication towards private sector engagement.

On 3 June 2026, Jana Le Roux, Special Advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, forwarded an email to the department’s Director-General and Deputy Director-General.

Outside of the Minister and Deputy Minister, they occupy the most powerful positions in the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform, and Rural Development.

In the forwarded email to the Director-General and Deputy Director-General, Le Roux states, “Attached just received for some amusement”.

What was striking was that the email was a request for engagement on South Africa’s foot-and-mouth disease vaccination strategy from a private-sector group.

The group, FMD Response SA, is a collective of farmers and industry stakeholders committed to finding common ground on the vaccination strategy.

FMD Response SA acknowledge the work Steenhuisen and his department have undertaken to secure FMD vaccines from producers.

Their focus is to support the Department of Agriculture’s efforts and ensure that cattle farmers, commercial and small-scale, can protect their livelihoods.

The group was formed by farmers with extensive experience at the farm level, which could be of great value to the department.

FMD Response SA said that they respectfully seek Minister John Steenhuisen’s assistance on two matters.

• Ensuring that South Africa’s FMD vaccination strategy and its implementation are more fully aligned with the biology of the disease and therefore best capable of effectively halting virus transmission.

• Ensuring that sufficient vaccines are made available to the private sector to increase the speed and coverage of the national vaccination programme.

“Our objective is to work constructively with the relevant authorities to ensure that the vaccination framework is implemented in an effective manner,” it said.

FMD Response SA gives feedback

FMD Response SA told Newsday that the email from Jana Le Roux is genuine. It has also confirmed it publicly.

“We do not have time to be offended. There is a disease to beat, and that is where our attention is,” Andrew Morphew from FMD Response SA said.

However, the group said that the email raises a fair question about how seriously the partnership between farmers and the state is being taken.

“That partnership is not a courtesy. It is the only thing that will bring this disease under control,” Morphew said.

He said that the government has a huge role to play, and that is not in question. It is leading the national response and funding the vaccines.

However, no government can beat a disease like this on its own. “Brazil and Argentina beat large outbreaks and vaccinated millions of cattle through private-public partnerships,” he said.

“Beating foot-and-mouth means vaccinating quickly, and across enough animals at the same time to stop the spread.”

He said that the state does not have the reach to move at that pace alone. That is why the private sector has to be part of the response.

“What is essential is that the government allow private-sector access to vaccines directly from importers distributing vaccines,” he said

“Experts have warned that the current plan the government is pursuing cannot reach its own stated goal of becoming foot-and-mouth disease-free with vaccination.”

No country has achieved that status through a slow, rolling vaccination campaign of this kind, with the government planning to vaccinate all cattle only by December.

“This needs to be addressed urgently. To ensure cattle reach simultaneous immunity, vaccines must be given in a time frame of six to eight weeks,” he said.

Access to vaccines through private veterinarians and urgently increasing the pace of vaccination with private-sector participation are what we asked to meet about.

“We are asking to help solve the problem. We remain willing to engage,” said FMD Response SA.

The Department of Agriculture’s response shocks industry players

Many industry players, including SAAI CEO Francois Rossouw, expressed dismay at the Special Advisor to the Minister of Agriculture’s response to this request.

Rossouw told Nuuspod that the Department of Agriculture has a dismissive attitude toward the private sector, as exemplified by a recently leaked email.

He said Le Roux, dismissing the private sector’s request for assistance as “some amusement”, is a fantastic summary of how the department treats outsiders.

“It reflects a broader attitude of arrogance, where public servants act as though they are to be served rather than serving the farmers who are in crisis,” he said.

“Although the Minister has established committees involving industry experts, Steenhuisen does not actually take their advice,” he said.

Rossouw argued that the Department of Agriculture’s response has been a failure of management and centralisation.

“While the Minister boasts of purchasing 13.5 million vaccine doses, the critical metric is how many animals are actually vaccinated,” he said.

He said the Department has missed the vital window to contain the spread of the disease, having vaccinated only about 31% in six months.

The Department of Agriculture’s poor response has caused significant damage to the local cattle and dairy industries, he said.

“Many farmers have stopped reporting outbreaks to avoid financial ruin, leading to an untracked wildfire of infection,” he said.

He said the private sector, including groups like FMD Response SA, has offered to manage the logistics and distribution of vaccines at their own cost.

However, the state has refused to allow private farmers to purchase or distribute vaccines, maintaining a monopoly that prevents effective disease control.

Many call for John Steenhuisen to be fired

Many people, including Martin van Staden, Head of Policy at the Free Market Foundation, have called for Steenhuisen to be removed from his position.

“The only way the DA can claw back moral credibility on this is for the party to publicly recall Steenhuisen and clearly cite his office’s repudiation of core values,” he said.

Renowned political analyst Frans Cronje also said Steenhuisen so badly botched the response to the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that he should be fired.

He slated Steenhuisen’s performance as Agriculture Minister, saying he deviated from the DA’s principles of a small state empowering the private sector.

He said that, rather than empowering farmers, Steenhuisen introduced a policy stating that the government would procure and apply vaccines solely.

Farmers and private veterinarians were actively blocked from administering vaccines, despite routinely handling much more dangerous diseases successfully.

This caused horrific animal suffering, specifically in the dairy industry, and resulted in tremendous losses in the livestock sector.

“Small-scale and emerging Black farmers without access to premier private care were completely decimated by the policy,” he said.

The Pretoria High Court delivered a scathing judgment against Steenhuisen and his department for actively engineering legal delays to block the matter from being heard quickly.

He explained that it was frightening for a DA minister to resort to such tactics, and that the court had to lecture him on basic constitutional principles.

Cronje said that Steenhuisen’s actions as Agriculture Minister completely contradict the DA’s core principles regarding government.

He highlighted that the DA’s historical campaign platform has always been that the state should be small and efficient while empowering the private sector.

“Instead, Steenhuisen chose a highly centralised, statist approach when it came to the foot-and-mouth disease response,” Cronje said.

He added that Steenhuisen’s performance was so poor that most ANC ministers would have been better.

“The new DA leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, should have fired him on day one for this because it was such an abomination,” Cronje said.

“If Steenhuisen survives the pending cabinet reshuffle, it will be a terrible blight on Hill-Lewis.”

John Steenhuisen responds

Minister John Steenhuisen responded in an online statement, noting an email originating from a ministry staff member.

“The email was in bad taste, and I have requested the person concerned to apologise to the respective parties,” he said.

“We must continue to show mutual respect and always act in good faith, because only through collaboration can we overcome major obstacles in the sector.”