As if we needed one more pressure on world food supplies.... NPR Reports that an outbreak of stem rust fungus, which attacks 80% of wheat varieties, is happening throughout Africa and is spreading around the world. The disease had not been seen since the 1960s, when stem rust resistant wheat was bred, until 1999 when a small outbreak in Uganda occurred and a new breed of the fungus, Ug99, emerged. Because Fungus spores can blow hundreds of miles, that small outbreak has now spread to Ethiopia, Kenya, Yemen and Iran and is getting perilously close to the bread basket of Asia, Pakistan and India.
For over a year, Norman Borlaug, who helped develop the original rust resistant strain of wheat for which he won a Nobel prize, has been warning about the possible devastation from an epidemic of this new wheat blight. Should Egypt, Turkey, the Middle East and India be hit with the disease, that’s over a billion people dependent on wheat that will be effected. Borlaug is particularly concerned that in the 10 years that have passed the problem hasn't been taken seriously. Simultaneously, American wheat, barley and other cereals are being struck by scab, another kind of fungus.
Now, an urgent seed breeding campaign is taking place, but with little help from the U.S. which has cut funding for international agricultural research by 50%. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has stepped in, however, with $26.8 million in research grants to develop new seed stock of wheat which has been found to be resistant to this new strain of the fungus. It will take 5 years, estimates say, to have enough seed to replace current stocks and that is assuming that they can produce similar yields and grow in similar soils as current seed stocks. Scientists are predicting that a total epidemic of stem rust could happen in the next 1 – 10 years because of how easily the Ug99 strain travels and mutates. In the meantime, farmers are turning to fungicides which the poor and subsistence farmers can’t afford.
One has to question if the fungicides, pesticides and genetically modified crops aren’t helping to spawn these more virulent forms of plant diseases such as we have seen with bananas and rice recently, much like misuse of antibiotics does in human populations. Certainly, monoculture is playing a huge part in the problem as single strain agriculture leaves the food supply incredibly vulnerable to disease. It is one thing to grow strains that are naturally resistant, even to cross breed wheat varieties to improve resistance and yield, and something else entirely to genetically modify wheat by adding in fish DNA or antibiotics or to breed out all other varieties of a plant as we focus solely on yield and marketability. Perhaps we need to stop trying to outsmart nature with pesticides, fungicides and genetic engineering and focus on what nature already has given us as a way to protect our food supply -- namely, variety.
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