Market watchers are paying close attention to North American seeding intentions, prospects for drought recovery in Australia and Chinese weather conditions.
However, little attention is being paid to what could be the real market mover – the significant potential for a stem rust epidemic in key wheat producing regions that could have devastating consequences.
Two years ago, a highly virulent strain of the disease called Ug99 jumped the Red Sea, migrating from East Africa to Iran.
Researchers say it is only a matter of time before the disease moves into Egypt, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
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“In my mind it’s inevitable,” said Rick Ward, co-coordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat program, an international collaboration of 17 research institutions fighting this new threat to global food security.
“The reality is that it could happen at any time.”
When it does show up in one of those key wheat production areas, it will almost certainly cause a spike in world wheat prices.
“On the surface, that can sound good to a Canadian wheat grower, but in the medium, if not immediate term, the risk is civil unrest.”
The airborne fungus can spread at an alarming speed once it finds a home, causing 10 percent damage to complete annihilation of a wheat crop.
Almost undetectable amounts of a milder strain of the disease materialized in the United States in 1950. The following year it caused significant damage to the U.S. wheat crop. Two years later it destroyed the entire durum crop and 40 percent of the country’s spring wheat crop.
Ward said a similar situation in South Asia would deliver a serious blow to global food security.
He said his comments are purposely alarmist because researchers feel they have a moral obligation to marshal all the resources they can. They see two possible extremes.
“One is we could go 20 years without a good stem rust year,” Ward said.
“The other is we could have fires all over the place next year.”
However, he is almost certain it won’t happen this year. He just returned from the world’s largest rust gathering in Mexico, a meeting that attracted 300 scientists from 50 countries, and nobody reported new outbreaks.
“Right now, no additional movement has been detected. On the other hand, it’s very unlikely it is just sitting where it was found.”
Consecutive droughts in Iran have helped keep the killer disease in check, buying valuable time for the international research community to further efforts to combat the fungus.
Ward had good news to report on that front. He said researchers are closer to a solution than anyone would have predicted two years ago.
International breeders are engaged in the “ultra-fast” multiplication of 15 Ug99 resistant wheat varieties that are exhibiting long-term resistance.
Kenya has varieties that are near release, and rapid seed multiplication is taking place in Egypt, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Iran.
However, more work is needed to increase the number of resistant varieties because the 15 in the works aren’t suited to every growing region.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a key benefactor, provides $9 million US a year to the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat program.
