Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) on its Roles; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Opening remarks by Chairperson

The Chairperson said the purpose of the meeting was for the Committee to understand the mandate of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and its relationship to the Department.

The Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Mr Mcebesi Skwatsha, said he was happy to be in the meeting although he soon left to attend another meeting.

ARC Research Initiatives on Climate Variability and Change: ARC Briefing

Dr Shadrack Moephuli, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Agricultural Research Council (ARC), briefed the Committee on the ARC research initiatives on climate variability and change. He said the ARC’s main desired outcomes and interventions are: crops with improved characteristics, sustainable ecosystems and natural resources, low carbon technologies, technology transfer, enhanced resilience of agriculture and climate resilient solutions.

ARC is working in establishing drought tolerant wheat germplasm pool, crop suitability, climate-smart agriculture technologies, and climate-smart livestock in South Africa.

In conclusion, ARC noted climate change solutions for the agricultural sector is a key point, toward achieving multiple United Nations development goals. It is important to monitor climate through weather stations to assess the extent of climate change as it impacts agriculture. Continued support for research on climate change is also important to ensure the agricultural sector copes. South Africa must develop tailor-made mitigation solutions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Policy-making must be informed by high quality local research, and sound findings on climate change. There must be continual interaction between scientists and policy makers.

For the full presentation see attached document.

OBPs Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Livestock Production linked to Changing Environmental Pressures resulting from Climate Change: OBP Briefing

Dr Baptiste (Baty) Dungu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Onderstepoort Biological Products, briefed the Committee on the OBP’s mitigation and adaptation strategies for livestock production, linked to changing environmental pressures resulting from climate change. He said OBPs strategy to climate change includes adapted production strategy from periodic production to annual production, product improvement, and vaccine development.

Changes impacting livestock over the past 15 -20 years include:

• High environmental temperatures which affected grazing of livestock.
• Longer drought period recently seen in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and Northern Cape.
• Heavy rains resulting in flooding, example, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal. Such occurrences were also seen during the winter season.
• Extreme cold temperatures.
• Change in South African seasons from four to almost two to three seasons. Winters are becoming less cold and shorter. It is starting to be warmer earlier resulting in shorter Spring seasons and longer Summer seasons.

OBPs strategy to climate change includes:

• Increased credit facility to make it possible for distributors to always have products available.
• Expanded its distribution network to make OBPs products easily accessible to small and emerging farmers.
• Creating distribution networks through animal health technicians (extension officers).
• Better pricing to encourage farmers to invest more into farmer biosecurity system.

For the full presentation see attached document.

Discussion

Mr C Smit (DA, Limpopo) asked if the ARC experienced any budget cuts because of the Covid 19 pandemic. He asked about the impacts of possible budget cuts on the work ARC does. He wanted to know if the ARC was sufficiently funded before the national Covid 19 lockdown.

Dr Moephuli (CEO, ARC) said before the Covid 19 pandemic, the ARC already received a budget cut of five percent for the current financial year, starting 1 April 2020. The ARC already had to factor in the budget cut in the ARC annual plan. The ARC did not receive a budget cut in response to the Covid 19 pandemic when the Minister presented an adjusted budget in June. This is because the ARC is providing essential laboratory services. The ARCs work was declared an essential service for diagnostics, and to enable farmers to harvest effectively.

Mr Smit asked about the research the ARC does on climate change, rain, and drought patterns. He queried how this research work flows to the proactive planning of the Department and the Department of Water and Sanitation. He asked how ARCs research work helps to ensure availability of adequate water for the agricultural sector, given the agricultural sector is dependent on the availability of water.

He asked how ARCs work helps in developing solutions to ensure water availability. Some of the solutions include expanding dam sizes, and capitalising on fresh water flows before it flows into the sea. This will increase water availability for agricultural and domestic purposes.

Dr Moephuli replied that the ARC collects all the weather data, makes rainfall predictions, and provides information to both national and provincial departments, as and when requested. He said the ARC provides information to local and municipal departments, as well as the Disaster Management Centre.

The ARC provides the information in a way it can be easily understood and used for planning. How this information is used for planning is determined by these departments.

Mr A Arnolds (EFF, Western Cape) asked what kind of tracing and screening methods emerged from the ARC research work. He asked how these methods contributed to Early Warning Systems (EWS) to reduce pest damage. He wanted more information on the Research Council’s surveillance and EWS.

Dr Moephuli replied using the example the ARC provided in the presentation is one of a livestock disease called Rift Valley fever. Rift Valley fever is one of those diseases which starts when there is high rainfall resulting in water stagnation. Ordinarily there must be a vaccine for it, but because of the recurring cycles of drought periods and cycles of heavy rains, farmers do not vaccinate animals on an annual basis. In the past two years the ARC tried to learn how to accurately predict the likelihood of the outbreak of Rift Valley fever in advance of the next rainy season. This information can be used to advise government and farmers to prepare. It helps in developing the right vaccine to be available at the right time, in the right amounts, and in the right places. By the time the rainy season starts, the farmers would have already vaccinated the animals.

The ARC does similar work in its weather advisory service, especially on the vineyards of the wine farmers. It provides a picture of the state of affairs regarding the condition of the vineyards and the likely implications of a possible disease such as Leafroll Virus. This helps because the necessary pesticides can be sprayed in time. The ARC provides information to other farmers through AgriCloud to inform farmers when it is time for spraying. It especially provides an advisory based service on information compiled, and a lot of historical data which would have been compiled by the organisation.

The ARC said it will compile a report around its work on heat stress and its impact on livestock. It will submit a written report on this, a list of projects, and what these projects reveal.

Mr Arnolds asked if all the weather stations are in a working condition. He said he hoped the Department was ready to deal with the impacts of climate change as a whole.

Dr Moephuli said the majority of the weather stations are functional. It is a challenge however to keep it fully functional at all times. There are technicians who travel all around the country to service the stations. Some of these weather stations are in remote parts. The frequency with which it can be reached is low, given the current lockdown restrictions on interprovincial travel.

There are 500 weather stations scattered around the country. Technicians would have to travel to service the stations. Currently, teams of technicians have only started visiting the weather stations after the relaxation of the interprovincial travel restrictions during lockdown.

He said there is a lot of work happening to monitor the condition of weather stations. Some stations get vandalised. It is not always the case the station would not have been serviced. This becomes a challenge for the ARC, as some of the weather stations are on schools. Some of the equipment is vandalised on school yards. The ARC does not have the exact number of vandalised weather stations at the moment.

Mr Arnolds asked how the ARC is supporting small holder and subsistence dry land farmers in dealing with heat stress and its impact on livestock. This is specifically in relation to research, information, and knowledge. The evidence is clear, small holder and subsistence dry land farmers are more vulnerable to climate change than commercial farmers given commercial farmers have all the resources.

Ms L Bebee (ANC, KZN) said as far as she understood, the OBP is a national key point. She asked if OBP ever received funding from the Department to upgrade and organise its facilities. She asked if the OBP assists smallholder farmers to mitigate against the impacts of climate change.

Dr Moephuli replied that the ARC was not selling any vaccines to any entity. It develops and produces blood vaccines which it supplies directly to the OBP. The OBP then screens the blood vaccines package and sells it.

Ms Bebee asked if the ARC and the OBP can give an update advising if provincial departments and municipalities are still sourcing vaccines from private companies.

Dr Moephuli said the OBP will respond to the question.

Mr A Cloete (FF+, Free State) said at one stage the ARC was a leader in research worldwide, but it is not anymore. He asked if the ARC will become the world leader it once was, given over the past five years the ARC cancelled producing vaccines in South Africa.

Dr Moephuli said globally and in South Africa, the ARC is still the largest single agricultural research institution on the applied side of agriculture. There is a strategy to it becoming a world leader again. The ARC developed the ARC Vision 2050 which is a strategy looking at responding to the agricultural needs of the country. However these goals can be achieved earlier than 2050. The ARC Vision 2050 is looking at a variety of research focus areas as it has changed under the different landscapes.

It looks at the variety of ways through which it can achieve these focus areas. If the Committee members require a copy of the ARC Vision 2050, ARC will make it available. The ARC consulted with a variety of stakeholders in the agricultural sector before the ARC vision 2050 was finalised.

Mr Cloete said R400 million was budgeted for the vaccination factory. He asked about the current status for the vaccination factory project, and asked if the ARC appointed the project manager for the vaccination factory project.

Replying to a question about the new project manager driving the process of development, Dr Moephuli said the architecture and construction for the vaccine factory is in place. The project manager for this project was appointed and started work at ARC at the beginning of August. He is very busy at the moment and has identified key areas around where to start, what ARC will need, and very soon he will table to the Board of ARC, a detailed project plan to help ARC monitor and drive this project as quickly as possible.

 

Mr Cloete said there have also been issues relating to retrenchments at ARC. He asked about the status of the retrenchments.

Dr Moephuli replied on the question of the announcement ARC issued to staff, regarding voluntary retirement packages. This announcement is based on the fact ARC engaged all employees through labour organisations and its representatives. According to the Labour Relations Act, it is a legal requirement to provide such a notice. ARC allowed all employees to access early retirement to reduce the cost of employees to the organisation.

One of the strategies to this effect is providing an incentive through voluntary severance packages. This process involves consulting ARC employees. Negotiations are still ongoing. The objective of these strategies is to reduce the cost of employees on the organisation. This is to ensure a bigger share of the Parliamentary Grant can be used towards research, rather than providing salaries for support. This way ARC has more impact on the agricultural sector and the scientific solutions it needs to develop. It is still work in progress. ARC will continue to negotiate with as many partners and employees as possible, so there will not be an adverse impact on the livelihoods of employees.

Mr Cloete spoke of the impact of climate change, and said the environment is a sensitive system, especially for water. If the state of affairs continues as it is, there can be real issues around water availability. He asked if ARC is able to have a look at some of the real issues polluting water systems, municipalities being one of the major polluters. He asked if ARC can do research to find the effect of the inability of the municipality to effectively manage sewage.

In the Free State, sewage flows into the Sand River and ultimately into agricultural water systems. It will be a good case study to look into it, considering how the municipality’s inability to manage the sewage system flowing into water systems affects agricultural productivity.

Dr Moephuli said ARC will look into it, and inform the Committee later if it is a feasible project for the ARC to conduct.

Ms M Mokause (EFF, Northern Cape) asked what kind of relationship ARC has with the Department of Health. She asked if the ARC has a co-ordinating structure, where it can collect, co-ordinate, and share information before a disaster strikes.

Dr Moephuli said ARC has a relationship with the Department of Health and shares information with it. ARC provides information to the Department of Health when and as it requests. However the ARCs primary relationship as a research organisation is directly with the National Institute of Health and Laboratory Services, as well as with the Medical Research Council.

ARC has a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with these two institutions. It collaborates on a number of projects, for example it works with the Medical Research Council to understand the medicinal properties of some of indigenous plants, including rooibos.

ARC is currently conducting this project, among other projects. There was once an outbreak of Listeria around the country and ARC worked around the clock for quite a number of months to collect samples in abattoirs. It collected samples on farms in a variety of agricultural settings, analysed a number of tissue cells for any possible contamination, to determine if it had the bacterium for Listeria.

Having done the genetic sequencing of these samples, ARC shared the data with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) which helped identify the cause of Listeria and where it could have occurred.

ARC shares data and information as and when it is requested by the Department of Health. Another example is the issue dealing with Ham, what the criteria is for growing it, developing a new type of cultivar, and how to manage particular plant species.

Ms W Ngwenya (ANC, Gauteng) said she wants to check if she is asking questions on the right presentation. She asked the ARC if there is any progress in building the new foot and mouth disease (FMD) vaccine manufacturing facility. She asked if there is progress, and when the building will be completed. She asked if the OBP has any system in place to manage the vaccine supply.

Dr Moephuli said the FMD vaccine facility project has four stages. The first stage is around developing the right vaccine technology to produce the vaccine. The second stage is around developing the right set of skills within the organisation, using the technology for the production of the vaccine. The third stage concerns if ARC can work beyond the laboratory scale to scale, up to a pilot level scale. When the pilot level scale is reached, the project proceeds to the design and construction of the facility. ARC successfully developed the technology which is a different technology from what existed in 2005. Now there is suspension culture technology. It works for all the three types of foot and mouth strains which are prevalent in South Africa.

ARC successfully recruited ten young South Africans and trained them. Each successfully attained Honours degrees through Sefako Makgatho University. The graduates were employed at ARC, and are currently employed in the Unit dealing with technology for the foot and mouth vaccine.

ARC successfully developed and piloted the production system. At the moment, pilot scales of up to twenty litres. Out of this, ARC was able to produce 50 000 doses of each of the three different strains of foot and mouth vaccines. These are available.

ARC continued clinical tests on different livestock species, to test if these vaccines work to provide immunity, and for how long the immunity will last. At the moment evidence indicates the strains ARC produced are able to produce immunity to the livestock for a minimum period of nine months. It could be more. ARC is continuing to conduct clinical studies on these vaccines. The project is now at Stage Four, which is for process design, architectural design, and construction of the facility. This is the stage the new project manager started. He will go through the process design, which effectively looks at technology. Process design looks at how to scale up at the very large scale, and provides information on how to architecturally design the vaccine factory, once ARC provides a clear map on when the actual full construction will start and finish.

Mr T Matibe (ANC, Limpopo) asked about funding. He asked if ARC is affected by the slashed budgets as a result of Covid 19. He asked to what extent ARC is affected by the Covid 19 budget cuts. He also asked how ARC plans to mitigate in light of the budget cuts.

Dr Moephuli said ARC does not only rely on the parliamentary grant. Part of the work ARC conducts is paid for by various farmer organisations it does work for. However, various organisations are not functional under the lockdown. This made it difficult for ARC to generate the statutory levies and pay for the research. ARC realises down the line it will not be able to generate the revenue it should generate to deliver its services. For example, the wine industry is not functional under the three different phases of the national lockdown. It has not been able to generate income for it to pay for the work ARC conducts on its behalf. This delays the ability to deliver on some of the projects ARC would do. ARC had to find different ways to mitigate this. One way is to delay filling of posts to manage costs.

Mr Matibe asked how ARC plans to mitigate against declining maize suitable areas, because of climate change.

Dr Moephuli said climate change over the years resulted in reduced areas around which maize is suitable for growing because of reduced rainfall, increased heat, and drought. ARC is engaged in research focusing on developing drought tolerant varieties which grow in drier environments with higher temperatures. This is a very important mitigation strategy. It is even more important for ARC to be able to increase yields under those drought conditions.

It started training and providing drought tolerant seeds to small holder farmers for it to try out these drought tolerant cultivar seeds under its own conditions. Some of these farmers achieved higher yields than what was achieved under the conventional systems.

Mr Matibe asked about climate-smart livestock production. He asked if an infrared camera which detects cattle under heat stress is available to small scale farmers as well as farmers in remote rural areas.

Dr Moephuli said the cameras and technologies ARC has are for conducting research and analysis. Its research on heat stress and livestock is available for smallholder farmers. The cameras are not the most important, but rather for ARC to provide scientific solutions and insights to farmers to understand what to do when temperatures are at a particular level. Farmers do not necessarily need the cameras, but do need information to make the farm management decisions.

Mr Matibe asked for detail on the six provinces where AgriCloud services are available.

Dr Moephuli replied said it is available on the Google store on android. The app is downloadable from anywhere in South Africa. It is available for use in 11 South African languages.

Mr Smit said he is from Limpopo, and the province had an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. When the outbreak took place there were no sufficient vaccines available to handle the situation. He asked what the situation is behind that.

Dr Dungu said OBP does not produce the foot and mouth vaccine. ARC has the facility for the FMD vaccine production. The OBP is involved in the distribution of the vaccine imported from Botswana. While the ARC vaccine will be available after the completion of the FMD vaccine factory project, the OBPs role in the project is very limited. OBP is not in the production of the vaccine as it does not have the facility to produce the FMD type of vaccine like ARC.

Dr Moephuli said the circumstances regarding the distribution of the vaccine imported from Botswana is best responded to by the Department. The Department is responsible for the distribution of vaccines in the area, particularly in Limpopo.

Adoption of Minutes

The Committee adopted the minutes dated 28 July 2020 without amendments.

The meeting was adjourned.