NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A significant portion of the world’s wheat crop is under immediate threat from a virulent fungus capable of destroying entire fields, says the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
A race of stem rust known as Ug99 because it was discovered in Uganda in 1999 has rapidly made its way through East Africa into Yemen and has now been found in another country in the Middle East.
“The detection of the wheat rust fungus in Iran is very worrisome,” said Shivaji Pandey, director of the FAO’s plant production and protection division.
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“The fungus is spreading rapidly and could seriously lower wheat production in countries at direct risk.”
Iran could provide a platform for the disease to spread into Asia. Countries at risk include Afghanistan and major wheat producing regions like India and Pakistan. The FAO estimates as much as 80 percent of the wheat varieties in Asia and Africa are susceptible to Ug99, the spores of which can be blown across continents.
Jim Peterson, chair of the U.S. National Wheat Improvement Committee, said that area is home to 19 percent of the world’s wheat crop.
If the fungus blows into India and Pakistan and finds a host, it would pose a serious food security threat at a time when global wheat stocks are at a 30-year low.
“I don’t think it’s a marketing opportunity any of us want to exploit at this point. It’s much bigger than that,” said Peterson.
“I don’t think we want to see any disruptions in world wheat production right now.”
Ethiopia and Kenya had serious stem rust epidemics in 2007 that caused considerable yield losses.
Peterson said it is only a matter of time before the spores make it across the Pacific or Atlantic oceans or travel to North America on the clothes of tourists.
Canada and the United States are no strangers to stem rust fungi that are deadly to wheat. In 1962, 30 percent of the Nebraska wheat crop and 27 percent of the South Dakota crop succumbed to a variety of the fungus. In 1954 and 1955, North Dakota and Minnesota lost 30 to 50 percent of their wheat crops. The Canadian Prairies were also hit hard.
“It has been an erratic disease, but when it hits it hits really hard,” said Peterson.
Fungicides are now available that weren’t around in the 1950s and 1960s but that is an expensive alternative for farmers. Researchers said a more effective way to combat the fungus is by developing crops that are resistant to Ug99 and other strains. That is how the rust lines of the 1950s and 1960s were fought.
Peterson is lobbying for $5 million in U.S. federal funding to speed up work that is already going on to develop such varieties.
It takes eight to 12 years to develop new resistant varieties and get them commercialized. In the meantime, 75 percent of all the spring wheat and winter wheat varieties grown in the U.S. are susceptible to the Ug99 fungus, much of which could be lost in an outbreak.
“We’re talking about the potential to lose from one-quarter to one-half or more of the Great Plains wheat crop,” he said.
Potential losses could amount to $10 billion US.
Canadian Wheat Board spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry said a lot of work is being done in Canada to stay one step ahead of the wheat killer.
“We are aware of it. We’re concerned about it. But we think all the measures that can be taken are being taken,” she said.
Agriculture Canada is screening its wheat and barley breeding stock for sources of resistance to Ug99.
