Another example of the Earth trying to deprive humanity of what rightfully belongs to humankind (everything...), or is it on "purpose" or an accident... ...with *or* without quotations?
I've got it! Let's declare war on the Earth!
None dare call it "conspiracy".... [heheheh]
Courtesy of HighBeam Research: AP Worldstream 09-09-2005
Fungal disease in East Africa poses threat to global wheat crop, say researchers Dateline: NAIROBI, Kenya
A new strain of a wheat fungal disease that has emerged in East Africa may spread if steps are not taken to develop resistant wheat, researchers said Thursday.
As much as 10 percent of the world's wheat crops, with an estimated value of US$9 billion (euro7.3 billion), could fail if the disease is not tackled, said Masa Iwanaga, the director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, based in Mexico.
A team of experts drawn from the center, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and other organizations wrote a report on the disease that was made public Thursday.
Iwanaga told journalists that it would cost about US$3 million (euro2.4 million) a year to develop wheat varieties resistant to this relatively new variant of a fungal disease called stem rust that eats away wheat from the stem up.
Miriam Kinyua of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute said that the strain first confirmed in Uganda in 1999 attacks wheat as it sprouts from the ground and throughout its life span, whereas the other variants of stem rust only attack it when it is flowering.
Kinyua said that this means farmers have to apply fungicide at least three times during a wheat plant's lifetime, rather than the usual one-time spraying, adding to the costs of production.
She said that in Kenya all wheat farms have been affected as well all those in Uganda and Ethiopia. Kenyan small scale farmers, who produce 20 percent of the country's wheat, have lost as much as 50 percent of their wheat because of the disease, Kinyua said.
Ravi Singh of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center said the strain was spread by wind from Uganda to Ethiopia and Kenya.
The new variant could spread to Egypt and Jordan because of the wind patterns between those countries and East Africa, and from there it can easily spread to the rest of the Middle East and Asia, Singh said.
"If you will ask me when exactly, it will be hard to say because this depends on the natural phenomenon .... It may happen this December or it may take a couple of years," Singh said.
Singh said that spores of the fungus can be carried as far as 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles).
Nobel Peace laureate Norman Borlaug said that the last global stem rust epidemic the world saw was in the 1950s and it was tackled by scientists from all over the world sharing information and collaborating on developing wheat varieties resistant to the disease.
"Maybe we became too complacent and maybe the good collaboration broke down," said Borlaug, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for improving crop management practices that transformed food production in much of the developing world.
"Nobody has seen an epidemic for 50 years. No one in this room except myself. I've heard many scientists say, 'Stem rust, no problem,' I said, 'Be careful," Borlaug told journalists.
Ronnie Coffman of Cornell University, who chaired the experts' panel, said disease-resistant wheat was key.
"What you have to do is prepare for it. You have to work together to identify resistant varieties of
wheat, which is at this time really the only viable solution, particularly for small farmers," Coffman said.
He said, "You can do something ... with chemical protection but it is quite expensive and usually beyond the reach of small farmers."
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