Canadian farmers don’t have to worry about the recent outbreak of karnal bunt in four counties of Texas.
The disease is still restricted to the four states in which it was found five years ago.
“We dealt with the problem in 1996, so the present situation is of no concern to us,” said Yudi Singh, a Canadian Food Inspection Agency
official.
“American authorities have taken it very seriously.”
Recently the disease was found in four counties of Texas where it has not been before.
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Karnal bunt is a fungal disease that can infect wheat. It does not poison wheat, but can make it taste bad.
It appeared in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona in 1996. Canada quickly clamped restrictions on U.S. wheat imports until inspection agency officials felt confident that U.S. officials had restricted the spread of the disease.
Since 1996 Canada has maintained its quarantine of the infected areas. The U.S. government has also quarantined the infected areas, making sure no wheat is shipped out.
The southern U.S. states do not export much wheat to Canada, but officials were worried that U.S. crops could pass through and contaminate the Canadian grain handling system, Singh said.
Some customers of Canadian wheat, such as Chile and China, are worried about the disease and will not buy from suspect supplies, Singh said.
A victim of Canada’s stringent policy was Frito-Lay, which was banned from shipping specialty Texan foods that contained wheat and durum.
Karnal bunt is native to Karnal in the Punjab area of India. It is at the same approximate latitude as the U.S. southern states.
The disease needs hot conditions and is not considered to be able to survive in Canada.
