Perilous
Times and Climate Change
Ancient wheat plague destroying world wheat crops anew
* From correspondents in Washington
* From: AFP
* June 10, 2011 10:23AM
DISEASES that ravage wheat fields are as old as time itself. The
ancient Romans even had a legend to explain the terrible plagues.
According to the myth, a mischievous young boy tied a flaming
wheat straw to a fox's tail, torturing the animal. This single act
angered the Roman god Robigus so much that he unleashed a
rust-colored plague on the fields that turned all the crops to
black.
"Stem rust, when it goes epidemic, destroys a crop," said Ronnie
Coffman, a leading expert on wheat disease and chair of the
department of plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University.
"There is nothing left but black stems, zero grain. It is just an
absolute devastation," said Ronnie Coffman.
The last major epidemic of the fungal disease known as stem rust
broke out in 1953 but was quelled with the introduction of a
resistant strain of plants in the 1970s, an initiative spearheaded
by the late Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner widely
known as the father of the Green Revolution.
In 1998, a new wave of the fungus known as Ug99 turned up in
Uganda, overcoming crops that were once resistant and wielding the
potential to kill as much as 90 per cent of the world's wheat.
The disease is now widespread in eastern Africa and threatens to
move deep into the Middle East and Asia, where it could devastate
farms, cause rising bread prices and unleash political and
economic unrest, experts say.
Already, the strain has shown up in Iran and in Yemen, Osama bin
Laden's ancestral homeland which has plunged into political
turmoil in the past five months amid deadly fighting over the
future of the country.
Rising food prices have also been a factor in a series of
uprisings across the Arab world, Mexico, Haiti and beyond.
"Yemen is a big problem," said Ronnie Coffman, who as Borlaug's
one-time doctoral student is now carrying on his mentor's lifelong
mission to spread strong crops around the world and provide steady
food sources to the poor. Borlaug died in 2009.
Whipping winds can transport spores as many as 160km per day,
raising concerns among scientists about where the epidemic could
turn up next.
"From Yemen, the wind currents are such that it could be carried
to almost any part of the world - winds blow into south Asia, they
blow into central Asia, they blow into Europe even," Ronnie
Coffman said.
From South Africa, winds could send the plague to the southern
cone of Latin America or to Australia, both areas that grow
tremendous amounts of wheat.
Wheat makes up one-fifth of the world's food and is second only to
rice in the diets of people in developing countries.
Kenya is one country that is already grappling with a crisis in
wheat production, with small farmers facing a loss of as much as
70 per cent of their yield, according to Peter Njau, an expert at
the Kenya Agriculture Research Institute.
Large-scale farmers who can afford chemicals to kill the fungus
still face rising costs of production, as much as 40 per cent
higher than in normal years, Peter Njau said.
The price of a bag of wheat has risen by about a third, and
spiking fuel costs combined with a recent reduction on import tax
for wheat will put a squeeze on local farmers unseen in many
years, he said.
"The farmers, when they harvest their crop, they will end up being
paid less for their product and that might be a bone of contention
between the farmers and the government," he said.
Kenya is working with experts at Cornell University and in Mexico
to deliver new strains that may be able to resist the latest wave
of stem rust.
Experts from around the world are heading to Minnesota next week
to share their latest research, as part of an annual meeting by
the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative project begun in 2005.
Some new approaches include attempting to combine multiple
resistant genes into a single plant so that it will withstand any
mutations that might allow stem rust to take over again, and
creating plants that allow some stem rust to infiltrate so that
the fungus doesn't mutate into a new super strain.
"Significant progress" has been made, with some new varieties even
boosting yields by up to 15 per cent, according to Ravi Singh of
the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in
Mexico.
But funding remains a key obstacle, and Ravi Singh said world
governments must now take steps to replace their wheat crops.
"Scientists can only do so much," Ravi Singh said. "We need to see
national governments making the investments in seed systems
development."