Title: FAO's Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme - Activity Updates 2009

In response to the threat posed by new races of wheat rusts, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has established the Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme (WRDGP) to contribute to global food security through the prevention and management of wheat rust diseases and the enhancement of wheat productivity. Within this programme, FAO is called upon to coordinate global action in virtue of its status as a neutral forum and through its linkages with rural communities, governments, regional bodies, national and international agricultural research and development institutions and the donor community. The WRDGP is implemented in close collaboration with the BGRI partners to foster cooperation and information sharing amongst the various national stakeholders and the international organisations concerned with wheat rusts. It presently supports 32[1] wheat-producing countries to enhance their preparedness to prevent and manage the spread of emerging virulent strains of wheat rust diseases. The focus is on capacity building in five thrust areas: (i) national policy for preparedness and contingency planning; (ii) surveillance and early warning systems, including virulence tracking; (iii) fast-track national varietal registration programmes for the release of resistant wheat varieties; (iv) rapid seed multiplication and distribution of quality seeds of resistant varieties; and (v) farm-level wheat rust management through participatory farmer training to reduce risk and improve yields under local farming conditions.

National and regional wheat rusts awareness and contingency planning workshops

Within the framework of the WRDGP and in close collaboration with its BGRI partners, FAO organized three awareness and contingency planning workshops during 2009. The objectives of these workshops were to raise awareness among key policy-makers and researchers in the countries on the status and risks posed by new wheat rust races, to enhance the collaboration and information exchange at the national, regional and global levels and to support national stakeholders in their preparedness to face the challenges of emerging new rust races. National participants to the workshops, mostly technical policy makers nominated by their respective Ministries of Agriculture, represented the sectors of plant protection, plant quarantine, agricultural research, breeding, seed multiplication and the extension service. The workshops had an interactive approach to encourage sharing of experience and knowledge across countries and institutions. An overview of the status of wheat rusts in the world and of the global coordination initiatives undertaken through BGRI to manage wheat rusts was provided. Representatives of the participating countries presented reports, jointly prepared prior to the meetings, covering aspects of wheat production, status of rusts in the field during the past years, national surveillance, breeding programmes, seed systems and extension services in their respective countries. The second part of the workshop was dedicated to working group sessions. International resource persons presented key concepts related to the elements of contingency planning for wheat rust specific to the sectors of surveillance, variety registration, seed multiplication, and farmers’ role. Participants formed firstly multi-national working groups to work on the aforementioned themes and afterwards interdisciplinary country groups to identify system gaps and to develop priorities and action plans for the prevention and management of rusts. Finally, regional cooperation and information sharing in the areas of surveillance, breeding, and seeds were discussed.

The regional workshop on “Wheat Rust Awareness and Contingency Planning for the North African Countries” was held on 2-4 June 2009 in Hammamet, Tunisia. It was attended by 16 participants from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia representing wheat national stakeholders from the agricultural research, plant protection, extension, and seed sector. Besides a multi-disciplinary team composed by FAO officers, the workshop was attended by other BGRI partners including Mr Amor Yahyaoui (coordinator of the ICARDA/CIMMYT Wheat Improvement Program (ICWIP)), Mr Ahmed Amri, Mr Meludi Nachit and Mr Zewdie Bishaw (ICARDA) and Ms Sarah Davidson (Cornell University).

The regional workshop on “Wheat Rust Awareness and Contingency Planning for the Central Asia and Caucasus Countries” (CAC), was held on 23-25 November 2009 in Baku, Azerbaijan. It was attended by 30 country representatives from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Besides the FAO team, resource persons in the meeting included Mr. Alan Roelfs, the internationally renowned wheat rust epidemiologist, Mr Amor Yahyaoui and Mr Ram Sharma (ICARDA regional coordinator in CAC).

The national “Wheat Rust Awareness and Contingency Planning Workshop for Turkey” was organized in Ankara, 9-10 December 2009. The workshop was attended by 84 participants and brought together representatives from key national and provincial institutions in the country involved in wheat production and protection issues covering breeding and research, variety release and seed sector, plant protection, and extension. The objectives of the workshop were to obtain an overview and understanding of the current systems, capacity and coordination mechanisms in the different wheat production sectors in Turkey and to stimulate discussion and interactions between these different sectors. Participants familiarized with the concept of contingency planning for wheat rusts and initiated the development of thematic action plans.

Rapid seed multiplication workshop

FAO and ICARDA organized an “Inter-regional workshop on Contingency Planning for Rapid Variety Release, Seed Multiplication and Distribution of Wheat Rust Resistant Varieties”, on 7-10 December, in Ankara, Turkey. The workshop objective was to sensitise policy-makers on the importance of an adequate seed multiplication and delivery system to replace resistant varieties. This workshop was attended by 47 participants representing the national research centres and key governmental institutes/departments of the national seed systems of 12 countries, namely Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Oman, Syria, Sudan, Turkey and Yemen. The national plant protection and the extension sectors of a few countries were also represented. An international expert, Mr Tony van Gastel, was called to facilitate the workshop along with FAO and ICARDA officers. Participants from different countries discussed the bottlenecks and recommendations to be taken into consideration for effective national rapid variety release, seed multiplication and distribution of rust resistant varieties and prepared their country action plan using the guidelines provided by the international resource persons.

All documents related to the four above-mentioned events, including lists of participants, country reports, expert presentations and final recommendations are stored in an FAO repository database and could be provided upon request. For additional information, please contact any of the following FAO officers working for the WRDGP:

Wafa Al Khoury (Coordinator) at wafa.khoury@fao.org
Dave Hodson (Early warning system) at david.hodson@fao.org
Tom Osborn (Seed expert) at thomas.osborn@fao.org
Francesca Mancini (Farming systems and farmer education) francesca.mancini@fao.org



[1] Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Georgia, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Yemen.



Attachments:
TurkeyInterregional.jpg
FAOBaku.jpg
FAO1.jpg
FAO2.jpg
FAO2.jpg
Related Articles
referenced by (1)
newsroom136: April 2010 BGRI Newsletter
Article: Multimedia339 (permalink)
Categories: :Multimedia:training, :Multimedia:training_archive, :Multimedia:FAO, :advocacy:FAO
Date: March 12, 2010; 7:20:37 AM EST
Author Name: Jenny Nelson
Author ID: jnelson