Antaletriangle
03-19-2009, 10:21 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/18/ug99-famine-wheat-harvest
The world's leading crop scientists have warned that a deadly airborne fungus could devastate wheat harvests and lead to famines and civil unrest over significant regions of central Asia and Africa.
Ug99 – so called because it was first seen in Uganda in 1999 – is a new variety of an old crop disease called "stem rust", which spread from Africa to Iran and has blighted wheat production in many parts of the world for thousands of years. The fungus was thought to have largely disappeared since the 1960s when disease-resistant varieties were developed and widely planted in both the west and in developing countries.
Scientists meeting in Mexico to exchange information on Ug99 are alarmed because the new disease specifically targets resistance genes in wheat. As a result, it is now believed that 80-90% of all wheat varieties grown in developing countries are susceptible to the fungus.
Ug99 is particularly dangerous because it can infect crops very quickly and releases vast clouds of invisible spores which can be carried by the wind for hundreds of miles.
The Nobel prize-winner Norman Borlaug, who is credited with helping India and other countries avoid famines in the 1960s by developing new crop strains, said: "This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction. It is capable of severely damaging virtually all of the world's commercial bread wheat. It is a problem that goes far beyond wheat production in developing countries."The [Ug99] pathogen needs no passport to cross national boundaries. Sooner or later it will be found throughout the world, including in North America, Europe, Australia and South America."
The new version of what scientists believe was one of the Biblical plagues has spread from Uganda to Kenya, and then to Ethiopia and southern Sudan. But in 2007 it jumped the Red Sea and is now widespread in Yemen and Iran where it is thought to have more or less halted because of a long-term drought that has inhibited its growth.
"Kenya is having recurring epidemics, the situation is getting worse in southern Sudan and it is now widespread in Ethiopia," said Rick Ward, coordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project based at Cornell university. "The likelihood is that it has already spread beyond Iran. We would be foolish to believe that other countries in central Asia like Afghanistan and Pakistan are not already at risk. Places like Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine are all susceptible."
Ward predicted that Ug99 would inevitably spread much further, potentially into regions where wheat is a staple crop for hundreds of millions of people. "It is a certainty that it will expand its area," he said. "It will continue to move and wherever it is present and the crops are susceptible it will potentially lead to a disaster of catastrophic proportions which will translate into widespread food insecurity and civil unrest."
Global wind models suggest the crop disease may next spread into Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
However, the scientists reported rapid progress in developing disease resistant wheat varieties. According to plant geneticist Ravi Singh, a project leader at the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Centre in Mexico, 60 disease-resistant varieties have been developed, some of which are thought to be not only resistant to Ug99, but higher-yielding than today's most popular varieties. Countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan are already being helped to multiply resistant seeds for future harvests, he said.
He added that it was a race against time, saying: "It will take years to distribute enough new varieties."
The world's leading crop scientists have warned that a deadly airborne fungus could devastate wheat harvests and lead to famines and civil unrest over significant regions of central Asia and Africa.
Ug99 – so called because it was first seen in Uganda in 1999 – is a new variety of an old crop disease called "stem rust", which spread from Africa to Iran and has blighted wheat production in many parts of the world for thousands of years. The fungus was thought to have largely disappeared since the 1960s when disease-resistant varieties were developed and widely planted in both the west and in developing countries.
Scientists meeting in Mexico to exchange information on Ug99 are alarmed because the new disease specifically targets resistance genes in wheat. As a result, it is now believed that 80-90% of all wheat varieties grown in developing countries are susceptible to the fungus.
Ug99 is particularly dangerous because it can infect crops very quickly and releases vast clouds of invisible spores which can be carried by the wind for hundreds of miles.
The Nobel prize-winner Norman Borlaug, who is credited with helping India and other countries avoid famines in the 1960s by developing new crop strains, said: "This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction. It is capable of severely damaging virtually all of the world's commercial bread wheat. It is a problem that goes far beyond wheat production in developing countries."The [Ug99] pathogen needs no passport to cross national boundaries. Sooner or later it will be found throughout the world, including in North America, Europe, Australia and South America."
The new version of what scientists believe was one of the Biblical plagues has spread from Uganda to Kenya, and then to Ethiopia and southern Sudan. But in 2007 it jumped the Red Sea and is now widespread in Yemen and Iran where it is thought to have more or less halted because of a long-term drought that has inhibited its growth.
"Kenya is having recurring epidemics, the situation is getting worse in southern Sudan and it is now widespread in Ethiopia," said Rick Ward, coordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project based at Cornell university. "The likelihood is that it has already spread beyond Iran. We would be foolish to believe that other countries in central Asia like Afghanistan and Pakistan are not already at risk. Places like Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine are all susceptible."
Ward predicted that Ug99 would inevitably spread much further, potentially into regions where wheat is a staple crop for hundreds of millions of people. "It is a certainty that it will expand its area," he said. "It will continue to move and wherever it is present and the crops are susceptible it will potentially lead to a disaster of catastrophic proportions which will translate into widespread food insecurity and civil unrest."
Global wind models suggest the crop disease may next spread into Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
However, the scientists reported rapid progress in developing disease resistant wheat varieties. According to plant geneticist Ravi Singh, a project leader at the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Centre in Mexico, 60 disease-resistant varieties have been developed, some of which are thought to be not only resistant to Ug99, but higher-yielding than today's most popular varieties. Countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan are already being helped to multiply resistant seeds for future harvests, he said.
He added that it was a race against time, saying: "It will take years to distribute enough new varieties."