 Combating stem rust: Uganda pest should give us food for thought
19 July 2010 - Guardian (UK)
A lethal stem rust has spread to southern Africa's wheat crop. The fungus, identified in Uganda in 1999 and called Ug99, is a new contender in the long hot war between plant breeders and plant pests. Stem rust is an old enemy, but until Ug99 turned up, plant breeders had thought they were in the ascendant. The spread of yet another destructive element – along with drought, flood, locusts, windstorm and rising fuel costs – in the challenges that face the African farmer is a reminder of several things. (PDF version of article) |
 Wheat rust and world farming
01 July 2010 - The Economist
It is sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in a decade. It is now camped at the gates of one of the world’s breadbaskets, Punjab. In June scientists announced the discovery of two new strains in South Africa, the most important food producer yet infected... (PDF version of article) |
 Red Menace: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation
22 February 2010 - Wired
As they queue to fill water jugs from a rusty communal tap, the women of Njoro can’t help but gawk at the odd scene across the road. In a wheat field ringed by barbed wire, a dozen men wearing white polyethylene jumpsuits stand in a tight huddle, eyes fixed on the green-and-amber stalks that graze their knees. They chat in foreign tongues — Urdu, Farsi, Chinese — that are rarely heard here amid the acacia trees and donkey carts of Kenya’s Rift Valley. The men’s hazmat-style safety gear suggests they might be hunting down one of the infamous viruses that flourish in this part of the world — Ebola, perhaps, or Marburg. (PDF version of article) |
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