Foot and mouth disease: What Indonesia is doing to stop spread

With foot and mouth disease on Australia’s doorstep, how is the disease affecting Indonesian farmers, and what is being done to contain the spread?

Veterinarians inspecting cattle for foot-and-mouth disease in Bandar Lampung, Lampung province. Picture: AFP

Indonesian authorities are in a race to stop the spread of foot and mouth disease in the country, which has already infected hundreds of thousands, and killed thousands, of livestock since it was first detected there in April.

While historically countries that have had FMD outbreaks have stopped the spread by slaughtering herds of animals, farmers in Indonesia are trying to keep their animals alive.

The disease was recently detected in Bali sparking concerns it could soon reach Australian shores and threaten the multi-billion dollar livestock industry.

As of July 6 FMD had spread to 21 Indonesian provinces and infected more than 320,000 livestock, according to official data.

More than 2100 of them have died from the disease.

The Indonesian government has stepped in, setting up a task force and ordering the culling of more than 2800 livestock.

Head of the government’s new task force Suharyanto compared the outbreak to the Covid-19 pandemic, and Jakarta said it would attempt to administer 800,000 vaccine shots to healthy cattle by July 7, before the day of sacrifice as part of the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha.

During the 2001 FMD outbreak in the UK, more than six million cattle and sheep were destroyed by UK authorities to eventually bring the disease under control.

Despite the risk of the disease spreading through close contact between animals, contaminated feed and farm equipment, Indonesian farmers are working to keep their animals alive.

“As long as the livestock are well-treated and well-fed, God willing, they can recover,” the agriculture ministry’s director of livestock production, Agung Suganda, said in a webinar last week.

A man feeds cattle in Bandar Lampung, Lampung province, amid an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease Picture: AFP

FARMERS PAYING THE PRICE

Indonesian farmer Okky Pratama usually sells dozens of cattle for Eid al-Adha, making his biggest earnings just before the Islamic day of sacrifice, but this year he has sold just five.

Clusters of the highly infectious animal virus in East Java and Aceh provinces have rattled cattle farmers and their output during the most profitable time of year in a country with the world’s biggest Muslim population.

“I am pessimistic about the sales. Regular buyers unusually did not send me any purchase inquiries,” said Pratama, whose farm in the mountainous Batu City is situated in the hardest-hit East Java province.

“When I contacted them, they said they did not (want to) sacrifice any livestock this year because of the foot-and-mouth disease.”

Profits from the holiday season – about 60 million rupiah ($US4000) – account for 75 per cent of his annual earnings, 31-year-old Pratama said.

But he has so far lost two of his cattle to the disease, while 33 others were infected but recovered after intensive care.

Suharyanto said small farmers whose cattle were culled would receive up to 10 million rupiah ($US666) in compensation – well short of the thousands of dollars farmers earned from Eid sales last year.

The Indonesian Cattle and Buffalo Breeders Association chairman Nanang Purus Subendro said the cancellation of pre-outbreak orders and demands for refunds had left farmers with “extraordinary” losses.

“We need to accelerate the (vaccination) process because we are in a race against the virus,” he said.