As NAMPO Harvest Day 2026 opened yesterday, May 12, the conversation in the halls and exhibition spaces turned toward a single, invisible threat: biosecurity. While the sector has long treated biological risks as isolated incidents, FNB Business leadership used the event to advocate for a total shift in strategy—from reactive crisis response to long-term resilience.
Dawie Maree, Head of Information and Marketing at FNB Agriculture, and Paul Makube, Senior Agricultural Economist at FNB, addressed producers and stakeholders against a backdrop of increasing biological pressures that now threaten the very core of the agricultural value chain.
System-Wide Economic Pressure
Maree noted that the era of viewing biosecurity as a contained production problem is over. “When biosecurity breaks down, the effects move quickly beyond the farm gate,” he explained. The financial consequences are staggering; while the 2021 Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak cost the red meat industry R2.1 billion, the current, more widespread outbreaks are expected to exceed that margin significantly.
The impact is not limited to livestock. From avian influenza disrupting poultry supplies to crop pests undermining export confidence, these disruptions have become multi-year events that threaten food security and national trade stability.
The Brazilian Benchmark
A key highlight of the briefing was South Africa’s transition to ‘FMD-free-with-vaccination’ status. Makube pointed to Brazil’s 20-year journey to achieve this as proof that there is no “quick fix.”
“The current FMD crisis exposed both government and industry failures,” Makube noted, citing inadequate enforcement of decades-old surveillance protocols. He emphasized that the path back to stability will require sustained discipline and a willingness to move away from reactive thinking. By the time an outbreak is visible, he warned, the cost is often already mounting and the conversation has shifted from containment to business survival.
A New Pillar of Risk Management
For capital providers like FNB, biosecurity has moved from a technical detail to a central pillar of financial risk. “A producer’s management practices, including biosecurity protocols, are part of the broader picture of resilience and sustainability,” the experts stated.
This means that biosecurity is now an integral part of lending and risk conversations long before an outbreak occurs. In a crisis, the bank’s role becomes one of connection—bridging farm-level realities with industry and policy responses—and providing tailored interventions such as restructuring or temporary relief.
Rebuilding for the Next Decade
The FNB team concluded that rebuilding national biosecurity is a shared responsibility. While the government must prioritize institutional capacity for diagnostics and vaccine readiness, producers must integrate biosecurity into daily operations.
As discussions at NAMPO 2026 continue, the central question remains: how can the sector build a system that is better prepared for the next decade? The consensus is clear: biosecurity must be treated as a strategic priority across the entire agricultural economy to ensure that the “farm gate” remains a gateway to global markets.